Dave and William , the Laurel and Hardy of our time

The following article posted on the Mail online today just about sums up this government' s priorities and incompetence

An abject lesson in making a laughing stock of Britain 

By Roy Hattersley

Were it not a potential tragedy – Britons stranded in the desert surrounded by rebellious tribesmen and families abandoned in the chaos of Tripoli airport – the Government’s pathetic attempts to evacuate citizens from Libya would be the farce of the year.

The Right Honourable William Hague, Her Britannic Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, appeared on television to explain that he had encountered some difficulty in chartering a rescue flight and that when a suitable plane had been hired, it was found to have mechanical faults.

So while British subjects sweated it out in the shadow of Colonel Gaddafi’s tyranny, the aircraft which was supposed to bring them home was stranded on the runway at Gatwick. Government officials were left searching for alternative flight companies like a tourist in a bucket shop looking for a bargain.

Elsewhere, a frigate (on its way to the knacker’s yard because Britain can no longer afford a proper Navy) was dispatched to the north Libyan port of Benghazi.

Meanwhile, ministers competed for the title of buffoon of the year.Hague himself – inexplicably and unforgivably – had earlier raised hopes and risked lives in Libya by announcing that he had information to suggest that Gaddafi was fleeing the country and was on his way to Venezuela.

But his irresponsibility was matched by the Prime Minister who, as stranded Britons feared for their lives, enjoyed the hospitality of other Middle East tyrants – men who may soon face the sort of popular uprising that, God willing, will topple Gaddafi.

And, having learned nothing from the disgrace of Britain’s previous weapons exports to Libya, he took with him a selection of arms salesmen.

Then David Cameron announced: ‘Just because I’ve left the country doesn’t mean I am not in charge.’ He may have been within mobile range of London, but he was clearly out of touch with reality.

What the performance of the Government confirmed was that nobody was in charge of the Libyan rescue operation – certainly not the bumbling Foreign Secretary nor the risible Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg who had gone on holiday to Switzerland and admitted that he had ‘forgotten’ that, in Mr Cameron’s absence, he had special responsibilities to discharge. Anyway, he could deal with things using his BlackBerry.

The whole government seemed to be in paralysis.

Yesterday, Mr Cameron switched from bluster to his most pious manner, apologising for what he described, in a magnificent understatement, as a ‘poor performance’.

No doubt his public relations training had convinced him that humility – not his most natural emotion – was the best way to limit the damage. But his confession of failure did not answer the crucial question which, sooner or later, must become the subject of a judicial inquiry. Why were the French, the Germans, the Turks, the Bulgarians and even the Chinese from the other side of the world able to rescue their nationals while the British were not?

Some of the blame must undoubtedly be heaped on the Foreign Office, the Rolls-Royce of government departments that recruits only the elite candidates for civil service employment. But because its men and women – often with justification – believe in their ‘effortless superiority’, the Foreign Office is a law unto itself unless ministers take firm control.

When I was a Foreign Office minister, I was told by Sir Oliver Wright (a diplomat of great distinction who had served Britain nobly in peace and war) that a policy I wanted to pursue ‘may be government policy, but it is not Foreign Office policy.’

Like a Rolls-Royce, the Foreign Office needs a strong hand on the steering wheel. Clearly, when the Libyan crisis arose, it was allowed to decide its own direction. And it failed abysmally to take the route marked ‘Get the Britons out as quickly as possible!’

In my time as a Foreign Office minister, Turkey invaded Cyprus and I watched and listened as our diplomats urged the Foreign Secretary to avoid any action that, in their jargon, ‘compromised British interests in the region’.

Too often the message is ‘be careful not to offend’. In those days we weren’t to offend either the Greeks or the Turks. It seems nothing has now changed and that we must do nothing to offend Colonel Gaddafi in case he manages to cling on to power and the oil that goes with it.

Yet sometimes in life, offence is morally unavoidable.

Jim Callaghan, in charge of the FO in those days, insisted that the safety of British citizens was our priority. Ten years later, Margaret Thatcher had the same attitude when she saw that the wish of the people of the Falklands to remain British was more important that maintaining good relations with Argentina or risking offending the United States.

I suppose that, as a party politician, I ought to take some comfort from Messrs Cameron and Hague cringing in front of the television cameras. But I take no pleasure from their humiliation.

Douglas Hurd, a good Tory foreign secretary, used to say that his job was to make Britain punch above its weight. This week we have looked too feeble even to protect our own people.

We can't go on like this | False Economy

We can't go on like this | False Economy

Robin Hood Tax

Tories let the banks clean up

In MARCH 2010  
 PRDave announced the Tories would impose a new tax on banks to ensure taxpayers are repaid in full for the bail-out of financial institutions. He said  ” I can announce today that a Conservative government will introduce a new bank levy to pay back taxpayers for the support they gave and to protect them in the future."

In OCTOBER 2010 
George Osbourne said "We will not allow money to flow unimpeded out of those banks into huge bonuses, if that means money is not flowing out in credit to the small businesses who did nothing to cause this crash and suffered most in it."

In FEBRUARY 2011

• Banks’ profits of £24 billion from four banking giants - HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds and Standard Chartered

• Barclays pays only £113 million in corporation tax to the Government on profits of over £5 billion, equal to 4,5% rather than the 28% standard rate of tax on profits

• Barclays pays  £3.7bn in cash bonuses  and awards to staff,

• Barclays chief Bob Diamond, who recently told a Treasury Select Committee the period for "remorse and apology" for banks needed to be over, is expected to be awarded a bonus of more than £9 million.

• Total UK bank bonuses expected to hit £7bn

• George Osborne announces a bank tax that would raise £2.5m for the Treasury this year,

• Charities including Oxfam, Save the Children and Greenpeace launch a campaign calling for a 0.05 per cent tax on international bankers' transactions that could raise up to £250 billion a year to fight poverty, protect public services and tackle climate change.

.

“Do the right thing, Do the right thing, Do the right thing”

As PRDave’s words echoed across the Middle East, he and his peace delegation of arms manufacturers and defence contractors have provided the politically and economically downtrodden of the Arab world a beacon of hope.

Taking advantage of photo opportunities with democratically appointed Egyptian generals PRDave held talks with the head of the armed forces supreme council, Defence Minister Mohamed Tantawi, and Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq.  Doubtless PRDave gave them tips of how to solve the problem of youth unemployment, and with a little help from his friends how to provide education and the health to the masses.

Representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's popular Islamist group was unable to attend due to previous engagements.

PRDave doubtless thinking ahead of how to defend the peoples revolution against hordes of Arabs not doing the right thing argued that it was "very much in Britain's interests" that the UK continued to promote defence relationships with countries in the region.

He said: "Britain has a range of strong defence relationships with countries in the region.  "So the idea that Britain should not have defence relationships with some of these countries I don't understand. It is quite right that we do.

Desperate to ensure that the various generals and colonels do the right thing PRDave’s party included ex PM John Major Chairman of Carlyle Europe, 2002-2005. the second largest private investment group in the world, which has major investments in the arms industry.  Currently Major's business interests are listed as: Senior Advisor to Credit Suisse; Chairman of the International Advisory Board of the National Bank of Kuwait; Chairman of the European Advisory Council of the Emerson Electric Company, St. Louis; and Chairman of the Advisory Board of Global Infrastructure Partners.  Doubtless Major was there to encourage Egypt to promote more facilities for cricket.

Others in his a large delegation from business and industry, included eight representatives of defence firms attempting to secure contracts in the Gulf States. Among them were: Ian King, chief executive of BAE Systems; Alastair Bisset, group international director at QinetiQ; one of the world's leading defence technology and security companies. and Rob Watson, regional director of Rolls Royce.

Surely a peace delegation that would intimidate any unruly mob of troublemakers.

What is PRDave doing about youth unemployment?

Youth Unemployment is nearly a million at 20.5%. What’s PRDave’s answer?

The Tory-led government has scrapped Labour's Future Jobs Fund, which was designed to deliver 100,000 jobs for 18-24 year olds with 20 hours a week of work on minimum wage.  A better deal than the work-for-your-dole schemes that are currently being discussed by the Tory-led government.

PRDave has broken pre-election promises to keep the Educational Maintenance Allowance, and the LibDems have broken their pledge not to raise university now tripled tuition fees. Many Sure Start children centres are under threat of closure

The long-term consequences of these broken promises will blight the lives of young people. Making it harder to continue in education and get a decent job

The Tories try to justify their policies by saying they want to avoid passing on debt to future generations. But by cutting the deficit so quickly, they are making unemployment considerably worse with jobs being lost in the public sector and a virtual hiring freeze in the private sector.

The Tories boasted a 40,000 increase in job vacancies in the three months to January; what they didn’t say was that this included temporarily recruitment  for the 2011 census. The actual increase was a meagre 8,000.

So what happens when the public sector jobs loss begins in earnest? The government hopes that the private sector will create 2.5m jobs enough to compensate for those lost, but what a forlorn hope, as many economists believe that unemployment could hit 3 million over the next year to 18 months.

Remember, Labour did act when youth unemployment rose in the early days of the recession: young people were encouraged to stay on at school, extra places were created at university and the Future Jobs Fund was created to help young people into work. By last year's election, the jobless rate for the under-25s was coming down, but it has since started to climb. Labour says the scrapping of the fund and the Educational Maintenance Allowance, designed to encourage full-time education, means the jobs outlook for young people is grimmer than for the rest of the population.

The Tories should be investing to secure improvements in the quality of life for upcoming generations - something the British people have enjoyed ever since they elected the first majority Labour government in 1945.

Why do rural areas vote Tory?

                     

Why do rural areas vote Tory? Why if the LibDems make some headway in rural areas is it primarily in the towns, and larger villages? 

What is Labour up against in rural local elections? What are the issues, if any, that may appeal to rural voters and how can they be expressed so that they are communicated in terms that rural voters recognise and acknowledge? Is it possible that we can learn from the u-turn re the forests? 

Ed Miliband reckons that protests against the reorganisation of the NHS will outstrip those against the forest sell off proposals. However, if we analyse the Tory-led government’s forest U-turn it can be argued that it was the reaction of conservative voters in the shires, who contacted their MPs in large numbers, that had the greatest influence rather than the half million signatories and campaigning groups. 

You only have to look at so-called u-turns on Bookstart and the School Sports Partnership to realise that well-heeled interest groups backed by celebrities had more effect than all the political and educational arguments put forward by the Labour opposition, unions and professions. As such, is it possible that objections to the NHS changes are for the general public too abstruse, too abstract in concept to mobilise effective pressure even though there are numerous professional opponents? The Independent has an interesting article published today by Matt Chorley called Flip Flop Dave.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/flipflop-dave-uturns-threaten-to-undermine-camerons-image-2219976.html

But back to business. How can the rural voter be defined?   Dr Michael Woods an academic at Aberystwyth University says, “The majority of rural people have made a decision to live in rural areas. They are more interested in policies to conserve the landscape rather than policies to raise the standard of living for the minority of deprived or disadvantaged residents in rural areas.”… “Rural areas are beset by powerful interests who do not want their perception of rurality threatened by inappropriate bodies, development or change. This can include state meddling in local affairs and sovereignty, agricultural decline, low cost housing or any more development.”

He sums it up nicely when he writes’ “within rural areas there is a power struggle going on between those that have and want more and those that have and those that don’t have as much as they used to and those that want something and those that need. That is a political no win situation.”….” The context in which the processes of countryside change are being played out – a planning system with a preservationist bias, an agricultural sector in crisis, a burgeoning middle class and a nation with an Arcadian view of its past – is common to many localities across England.

“The results of this complex interplay of social and power relations leaves some people marginalised in their own community as other individuals and groups move in and bring with them both economic power, political and social ambitions and even a different view of what rurality is all about.”

In addition in rural areas we see a stronger retention of historical political allegiances where voters voting habits are permanently ingrained by long-term processes of political socialisation that takes place in the family, the work place and in the wider community. Traditionally in rural areas Labour has been regarded as the party of the trade unions, of centralisation and the state, perhaps dare it be said influenced by foreign ideas, while the Conservative Party might be presented as the party of private enterprise, low taxation, of private property and above all the nation as a whole, which makes them a truly patriotic choice.

Then there is the question of paternalism, a version of feudal autocracy that in the early part of the 20-century obliged the agricultural class to vote following the lead of the local landowner. In this district it would have been the Earl of Portsmouth, who laid the foundation for Morchard Bishop Memorial hall in 1932. Such people would have invariably been the figurehead for any local good cause. The loan of their name and face would be a sure-fire seal of approval. Today we have the Devon Central MP Mel Stride, who has obviously done his rural homework, continuing in the style of the good Earl (the present Earl is of the far right) by lending his name and unfortunately his face to whatever cause Tory local councillors tip him off about. In this way political socialisation is still alive.

Mori polls in the south west have found that only around 20% would wish to reinstate traditional hunting.
 

As we see from Michael Woods’ analysis the countryside is not a static entity, as the Alliance would like us to believe. The concept of the rural has been reformulated to suit those who have made a conscious decision to live there and to protect their perception of rurality and the privileges it brings.

rurality and the privileges it brings.

In general it could be argued that consumers of public services are more likely to vote Labour because they see Labour as most likely to improve living conditions and to improve public services while private sector workers and consumers of private services may be more likely to vote Conservative because they oppose the higher levels of taxation necessary to defend public services which they do not use, or so they believe.  Yet many of the rural population are elderly, consumers dependent on public services in health subsidised public transport, state pensions, winter fuel allowances, and tax credits.  And yet they tend to vote Tory.

This strengthens the argument that many older rural voters have been politically socialised. We only have to add to the mix the middle class incomers who do not want their perception of rurality challenged to realise that voting Tory is about a perception of identity not of political choice. However in this equation the plight of the young and the rural working class has no place.

We should therefore ask ourselves about those who do not vote Tory either by abstaining or voting for the only alternative (at least in Mid Devon) the LibDems. The LibDems have been very adept at localising their politics, putting a recognisable face onto local issues that range from potholes to local charity events. The idea is that votes accrue to people who are available, who care who are just round the corner and who are active on your behalf no matter how small the issue, are truly representative of you and me, because in some way they are just like you and me. The LibDems have spent many years working to a centrally produced rulebook to refine this approach, and for Labour to attempt to follow in the short term is not practical.  Still, it will be very interesting to see how much of the LibDem vote is an anti-Tory vote.

In recent national elections, certainly since 1992 political socialisation and indeed class, has had less correlation with voting intentions than in, certainly pre-war, elections.  In the words of Bill Clinton “It’s the economy stupid.” The economy has become the central political issue. Recent elections have been won partly because the winning party have been seen as having the best policies on the economy and more importantly seen as being most competent to run it.  It follows that since most voters have insufficient understanding to follow the details of economic policy, judgments of competence are likely to be influenced by perceptions of overall leadership which have become much more important determinants of voting. Brown was pretty competent, and certainly decisive during the financial crisis.  This is why that PRDave spent so much energy in demolishing Gordon Brown’s character, when in reality the Tories had nothing better to offer.

The coming local elections are unlikely to entirely follow a pattern of putting single local issues to the forefront, although of course there may be exceptions. National issues have become local issues. National cuts have become local cuts.  However anti cuts campaigns have something of the ideological about them, and it could be argued that such campaigns will not work in our rural wards. Going further, ideological language e.g. “ConDems” and the stock phrases of the unions while playing to the converted are more likely to act as barriers to effective electoral communication. The same could be said about the left’s fixation with “privatisation”which to many is an ideological issue, and anti-privatisation is not necessarily, no matter how much we believe otherwise, is not an issue that unless it is backed by clear and unequivocal evidence of its shortcomings.   The way in which issues are presented will be crucial, remember the medium is the message.

So what are the issues that Labour can exploit in the coming local elections?  Here are seven suggestions

The situation of the young, hit by the removal of the EMA and the deterrent to higher education of high tuition fees.  This issue affects grandparents, parents and young voters. It has a direct relationship to;

Jobs. Particularly youth unemployment. Where are the local jobs to come from?  Problem of the high street and local business as employer. What schemes exist to support school/college leavers?

Rural Transport.  High fuel costs for private residents and business. Government hesitation in capping fuel duty.  The future of subsidised transport.  Effects of rural isolation on the poor. The Cost of finding work and getting to work.

The culpability of Banks. The cost to local people of VAT increases, inflation and specific council cuts, and the effect on charities.

Police cuts. Is there a relationship between police numbers and crime, which the government denies?

National and local leadership and political and economic competence. Focus on the government record. Incompetence and u-turns.

NHS. This needs to be worked on, however increases in waiting lists, a debate about the effectiveness of targets can be highlighted.

Finally we should hammer home that there is only one alternative.  It is a two horse race Tory with LibDems or Labour. Strategic voting is dead.

Let’s pray “Sturdy Beggars” don’t make a comeback

“Sturdy beggars” amounted in the eighteenth century to around 20% of the population, and half the population was dependent at one time or another on charity to survive. By the end of that century around 100,000 paupers were incarcerated in nearly 2000 newly established workhouses.

Much later when “you never had it so good”, a combination of high demand, post war governments’ fear of 1930’s style mass unemployment, unions that accepted wage restraint in return for full employment, broad acceptance of restrictive practices, and industry’s high profits, meant the average unemployment in the UK was 1.6%.  At this time in the 50’s and 60’s low unemployment was seen as something that should and could be maintained.

Now, in February 2011 even before the bulk of the public sector redundancies already announced take effect in April the unemployment figure is 7.9%.

However since the 60”s that figure of 7.9% is not particularly unusual, although it represents 2.5 million and many economists think it set to rise to 3million, a figure that is comparable to that of the early 80’s when unemployment was 12.5% at its peak. Compare that to the 1.1m unemployed when in 1979 the Conservatives swept to power on the message that "Labour isn't working".

Unemployment has always been a problem whatever its victims have been called, and there seems to be a great deal of name calling in the Tory press. It has engendered fear in society sometimes of revolution, petty crime, sometimes of the weight of financial obligation it brings to parish, or central government, and more recently a fear of a diminution of revenue to the Treasury through spending and taxation.

So what is it that should make us particularly concerned now? A jobless recovery is one of them. Unemployment is up and employment is down.  The labour market held up relatively well during the depths of the recession as employers cut hours rather than jobs. Now businesses are increasing the hours of existing staff and not hiring.

In the UK there are now over 420,000 less jobs than when employment peaked around 29.5m in April 2008. The number of full-time jobs is nearly 900,000 below its peak, because job creation has been overwhelmingly confined to part-time employment.

Around 1.2m are working part-time because they cannot find full-time jobs, the highest total since records began.

The situation will worsen as Tory-led Government cutbacks hit the public sector and slow the economy.  Some fear we may just have to get used to higher permanent unemployment of around 8% as companies get used to fewer staff and slower growth.

Never mind a jobless recovery some are warning of a "job-loss” recovery.  The biggest losers are already emerging - the young. However ironically one of the main mantras of “cut the deficit in one parliament" approach is the awful legacy the older generation is leaving to future generations. There seems to be some contradiction here.

Unemployment of 16-24 year-olds is at 20.3% the highest since comparable records began. This is around 950,000 young people without work. although some estimates put those not in education, employment or training closer to 1.4 m.  

These figures do not tally with the Tory-led Government’s policy to abolish the educational maintenance allowance (EMA) without a clear replacement.  They do not square with the raising of tuition fees.  We face the probability of a whole generation or more who will be blighted by this Government. The figures are there for all to see, but this Government has abandoned the young.  Would half a million signatures and a concerted campaign get them to not only change minds, even make a u-turn on EMA?  It seems we are more concerned with our trees than the lives and ambitions of the next generation.  Perhaps we should be pleased about the forests, as future sturdy beggars will still have somewhere to hang-out.

Don't buy political brands, there's always a catch.

It seems that we are no longer New Labour. The word “new" has been dropped from HQ website, stationary, email addresses and so forth. Is this a good thing? 

Looking back Labour had to do something about the realities of Thatcher’s drive to create co-conspirators to her dream by selling off council houses and make an army of mini capitalists with the help of Hissing Sid (look it up).  Once Kinnock had lost the 1992 election, even after expelling the Militant Tendency, the foundation of the SDP, and the electorate's fear of losing Thatcher’s and by continuation Major’s gifts, something had to be done to win the approval of an aspirational electorate. Bluntly summed up by the Sun’s headline 'If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights.' Something had to be done.

However in 2011 New Labour as a calling card has all the resemblance of a 15-year-old suit.  The lapels are the wrong width, the waistline reminds of past times, not to mention the suiting, cool and modern at the time, but now difficult to keep in shape and resistant to further dry cleaning.

New Labour at birth was a bit like the Big Society. You couldn’t put your figure on what it was about except to guess that New Labour wasn’t like the old version. But the only way to find out was to taste, to vote it in, something the electorate wouldn’t do with Kinnock.  And like the Big Society it was meant to appeal directly to the middle classes. In the case of New Labour to those who aspired to be middle class and in the case of  the Big Society, to those who felt themselves securely middle class.

Both brands,  that is what they are, contain the words that are favourites of advertising executives, prefixes that are always guaranteed to have an immediate impact.  “New” is always a good addition to a name to liven up a jaded product of which the consumer has grown a little tired. It tempts the punter to try a new experience.  Likewise ”big” but here the difference isn’t  to do with  enhancement  but quantity, more of the same. So a New Mars Bar should promise at least a newish chewy experience, while a Big Mars, offers more of the same.  However it could lead one to ask am I paying more for less? Is there a con somewhere, and anyway do I want more of that sickly stuff?

Steve Richards in yesterday's Independent seems to think that PRDave is onto a no-loser in pushing the Big Society, and glory glory it makes him seem a bit idealistic. Rubbish. Notice that PRDave has dragged up the Broken Society from his vault of catch phrases to somehow give some gravitas to his pet project.   "Sorry old chum the washing machine we sold you is a dud but here’s a bigger one to make your neighbours jealous."

PRDave will be stuck with the Big Society forever , like Major with Victorian values and warm beer and, it could be his epitaph.  If his peripatetic street gang can’t explain it to the punters on their own doorsteps. what a gift to  the opposition to define it in any way they like and that’s the PR mistake that could see the end of PRDave.

Where is the B*g S*c**ty? We're not telling

We can look forward to a week of hard selling of PRDave’s pet project.  Yes, the Big Society is due for a re-launch (with extra money can you believe) and to start it off Francis Maude appeared on TV’s Politics Show today to explain exactly what it comprises.  Sorry, having already suffered from an appearance of Simon Hughes who has the unpaid and unannounced job of chief fence sitter, it was rather difficult to focus on a drizzle of words uttered by an expressionless and humourless successor to Max Headroom (look it up on Google all you unbelievers). I-Player anyone?

At least he didn’t mention the Royal W for which PRDave (acting in his I’ll get us the World Cup mode) found £50m to support “the event to sell Britain as the perfect tourist destination” Of course while Tories are happy to play with money, they have no idea where it comes from or what it means to you and me, or so they say, but a bit of research would have told them that the number of visitors to Britain has had a monotonous tendency to decrease in the years these splendorous events take place.  Probably  all those would-be tourists stay at home in Cincinnati and Shanghai and this time, will watch  the high-lights on television, after a starter  DVD of The King's Speech, just to get a handle on that English culture thing.

Concerned about the exact meaning of the Big Society, the editors of the Oxford Dictionary are biding their time, but it hasn’t stopped the House of Commons doing it’s bit by considering “renting itself out for weddings and corporate dos.” Perhaps it’s PRDave’s idea to encourage marriage and at the same time support business.

And while PRDave is authorising millions on the Pope’s visit and the Royal W, his communities minister is telling councils that they mustn’t publish more than 4 newsletters a year.  You know, they arrive mysteriously through the letter box,  pretend newspapers that tell us nothing useful, but boast how kind your council is. Of course Pickles doesn’t really care that this directive, which has all sorts of attached criteria about content, is an affront to something called localism. His only concern is to stop those troublesome lefty councils from telling us in print how nasty he and his cuts are.  Perhaps he got the idea from another would be Pharaoh, sorry ex.....!

You have by now realised that this is being written in a kind of anger. “Its all very well” I here you say, but what can be done?  Ian Jack who is a very perceptive writer and analyst, commented on the popular “ it makes me so angry” response to bankers in an article in the Guardian on Saturday

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/12/ian-jack-anger-rich-people/print 
His focus on the increasingly obscene gap between rich and poor in India is particularly chilling.

I don’t know if there is a Big Society in India, but it’s rather disturbing to hear ex Archbishops quoted as claiming that they (meaning their ex-employer) has been doing it for 2000 years

Still PRDave is on to it. Even before Jack’s article PRDave was telling us from the distant shores of Munich (well Bavaria has some rather nice lakes) that no good had come of policies that encouraged state multiculturalism. This of course made a lot of people angry, but made good headlines in the Mail.  The French of course who had travelled over the border to debate terrorism had no idea what he was talking about. However PRDave was saved as the English Defence League and the National Front voiced as one that PRDave was now on their wavelength.

And so you ask where does the Truth lie?  Ben Goldacre again in Saturday's Guardian just about sums it up as far as health reforms are concerned.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/12/bad-science-ben-goldacre-nhs/print

Dave knows what he means

PR Dave has had a couple of setbacks today. First the Courts rule on behalf of 6 local authorities that to stop the schools' building programme was an "abuse of power". A pure technicality says a Tory spokesman!

Secondly the Tory led government is thinking again about the forests sell-off.  No, this is not a U-turn says another spokesman, it's all part of the consultation. What consultation?

Which leads us to a nice little article by Johann Hari in today's Independent that just about sums up PRDave's  technique of leadership.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-when-will-the-souffl233-of-spin-collapse-2211002.html

Miliband's best PMQ

Ian Dunt's review of Wednesday's PMQ  at http://uk.news.yahoo.com/blogs/talking_politics/cameron-is-out-of-control-but-miliband-lacks-a-killer-touch-p168356.html

correctly describes the Cameron's appalling performance  but is not an admirer of Milliband's style. Well he should be. Here's our response"

Ian, I know you don't like Milliband. But at least you recognise that Cameron doesn't know how to handle him, Cameron can't bully Milliband like he did Brown, because he  presents himself as a clinician who isn't personally affected by Cameron's over rehearsed personal barbs. That's why Cameron has dropped a lot of the personality based attack, it just doesn't work, and is now getting angry, partially because he has little command of detail. This is why  Cameron felt he had to reveal the Big Society Bank Deal ( which is only a loan from dormant accounts) in PMQ before Osborne, as he had no other punchline. Cameron is intuitively a bully, and you can show passion without ranting and raging. Ok so Milliband's knife sometimes misses, but there is no doubt that Cameron is rattled.  Remember Cameron's bemused resonse to Nick Clegg in the first national TV debate.  Its all very well presenting an "intuitive and naturalistic presence, a statesman like pose"  but he hasn't the substance to support it unless he's been set up to be the soloist in  total command of the stage. Yes Milliband's best PMQ.

Budget cut to pay for Pope

Apologies for the Mail style headline, but it gives some idea of the anger generated by the revealation that

MPs on the international development select committee have discovered that £1.85m, supposed to be for overseas development aid was spent on the Pope's UK visit in September.  

The money was transferred from the Department for International Development which handles foreign aid to the Foreign Office.defended the transfer saying it would not affect overseas aid spending as it was taken from its running costs budget, used to pay for staffing and administration costs, which is not ringfenced from spending cuts unlike core overseas development aid which is protected.   

The department was one of several which part-funded the Pope's visit. However the excuse given by the Department is even more extraordinary: "Our contribution recognised the Catholic Church's role as a major provider of health and education services in developing countries."

The four-day visit in September was estimated at the time to have cost Whitehall departments £10m. Roman Catholic churchgoers also contributed to the costs of the visit.

The Select Committee has asked Ministers to explain exactly what this was spent on and how it tallies with our commitments on overseas aid

It is to be hoped they also ask what other Departments contributed to this so-called state visit, and how much  the Pope's visit has actually cost the government. Perhaps they should also ask the Pope to provide evidence of the health and education services provided, and compare these with the damage caused in Africa by the Pope's injunction on the use of condoms.  

Or perhaps he was on a Government sponsored mission to investigate the profit potential of the privatised health and education the Tories are determined to foist upon us.

How super rich left the rest behind

Have a look at this article from the BBC News website

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/9382745.stm

Is there a solution?

Why Free Schools and Academies?

A day or so ago a post that was meant to be an ironic take on free schools, received a comment that, quite rightly, cut through the generalisations to point out something of the background to the development of Free Schools.

Before the May election all of the three parties were promoting education policies that were not a million miles apart. Whether schools in England should be state-run or independent was an issue and is still today. Remember these proposals for both Academies and Free Schools only apply to England however they are decided by a vote in the British Parliament.

The Labour Party, proposed to increase the number of publicly funded but independent academies. Labour also planned legislation that would allow successful head teachers or education providers to partner failing schools or take them over, creating ‘federated’ secondary schools that would be part of a group of schools overseen by a board of trustees.  Where Labour stands today is a question that needs to be answered. Many in the Party were and are vehemently opposed to academy schools of any description.

The Tories went further by proposing that individuals, parents, charities and teacher groups would be able to establish and run new, independent but state funded ‘free schools’.  In addition parents would be able to run local schools threatened with closure. The Tories’ proposals were based on the model of free schools in Sweden and Charter schools in the US, which run independently of the state school system. The second thrust of Tory policy was to extend the Labour Academy legislation to allow existing “outstanding” state schools to become academies.  

The LibDem's policy was to replace Labour’s academies with ‘sponsor managed schools’, which would be independently run but accountable to councils as opposed to central government. They pledged a £2.5bn for a pupil premium to help those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Incidentally this has come about, but critics point out that the premium is not additional funding.

So all the main political parties seemed to be moving in the direction of creating more independent but publicly funded schools. Why? What proof is there that schools that have a large degree of independence over their management, the curriculum and its delivery promote higher standards?

Sandra McNally, of the London School of Economics, and a Swedish colleague Helena Holmlund have published a paper on Swedish free schools, raising doubts about whether the model would make much difference in the UK. It was published as the former head of Sweden's school inspectors said that free schools had not, in fact, improved Sweden's school results.  Remember that Sweden had few independent fee paying schools when free schools were introduced in !992.  England has a large independent (private) school sector, some 7% of children are educated in private schools.

In Should English schools turn Swedish published in Moneyweek Simon Wilson points out that in Sweden Free Schools are “funded by the state using a voucher system, according to the number of pupils it can attract. Why would this improve the system?

The idea is that increased choice and competition will force up standards in all schools, not just in the free schools and academies. Here, the evidence from Sweden's experience is mixed and contentious. There are now 1,063 free schools in Sweden (18.6% of the total), educating 10% of all pupils. At the upper school level (16- to 19-year-olds) free schools account for 40% of the total. Measured by parental satisfaction, these schools are undoubtedly a success: 90% of parents approve of the education on offer. There is also some evidence that the great fear of free-schools critics – that they will cause other local schools to suffer, by comparison – is unfounded.

In 2006, a major review by the Swedish education agency found that in districts where more than 10% of pupils went to free schools, increased competition raised standards in both free and state sectors. On the other hand, researchers also found that the competition effect declined over time. And 15 years on, even some early pioneers of the free-school movement are sceptical as to its overall effectiveness. Pupil performance across the Swedish system has declined in comparison with international peers. Bertil Ostberg, schools minister in the ruling centre-right coalition, told the FT recently that in the 1990s reformers hoped that through competition all schools would become better. "I wouldn't say that this has failed. But maybe some expectations were too high that this would change the system as a whole."….

The free-market model has not fully worked there because it has proved tough to implement an essential element of competition: closing poor schools. In the face of parental pressure and media opposition, this has proved very hard to do, …but again, there's a lesson from Sweden. Gove and the Tories envisage that local parents and education charities will set up schools, and their plans forbid profit-making companies from running them. Ostberg says that this was the initial vision in Sweden too, but it proved unrealistic and naive. Parents want good schools, but on the whole they don't want to run them; enterprises with capital, economies of scale and brand awareness have proved essential.

Will that happen here? It may have to. Critics on the liberal centre-right (exemplified by a Times leading article this week) argue that the profit motive is important because it drives expansion, and have urged the Tories to reconsider. Swedish free schools (and similar US charter schools) run by profit-making companies do not charge fees, but are still purely state-funded independents, receiving funds according to the number of pupils they can attract.

However, where companies are allowed to make a profit, oversubscribed schools have a natural incentive to open a sister school, rather than build up a waiting list. Moreover, given the constraints on public spending it is unlikely that the UK government will provide start-up capital. So a non-profit policy could prove ineffective in terms of attracting companies to run schools. Who will fund the academies?

In Sweden, free schools are allowed to make a profit, though they do not charge fees. Almost 30% are owned and run by education firms, such as Kunskapsskolan. It runs a chain of 32 schools, and has plans to sponsor two academies in England, in Richmond (in Surrey) and in Suffolk. Edison, the largest provider of state-funded private schools in America, is keen to enter the British market. GEMS, a company based in the United Arab Emirates, which already runs 12 private schools in Britain, is also developing plans to run state-financed free schools. "We are exploring opportunities right now, supporting groups of parents," they told The Guardian.”

So are all those anti-privatisation activists correct to protest against the Tories education plans?   It doesn’t take much imagination to see that Gove would like all education to 16 in the hands of schools independent of local authorities. However to make this happen would be highly contentious, and what to do about the less successful schools? Obviously he is hoping that market forces and parental pressure will make these schools unviable and therefore eventually close.

Where will we be if Gove’s dream comes about?   All schools independent of local authorities, run by a range of providers, each, as is now envisaged with its own ethos, curriculum but centrally funded.  Hmm!  What’s the snag?  Central interference and control maybe?  Gove will need to show that his ideas work, that a newly converted Academy remains outstanding. What better way of doing it than to ensure they are measured by standards imposed from the centre on subjects the content of which are also determined by the centre. He has already retrospectively introduced the English Baccalaureate, as a means of measuring schools achievement.  Expect further developments of this kind.  And by the way what happened to "localism".

Finally  " At the end of the day, though, what makes a school are great teachers and a great head. This might, in the end, be the biggest stumbling block to the Tories' plans because as existing schools already know, great teachers are thin on the ground, and great heads even scarcer. So, no matter how the free school story unfolds, it will always be the professionals who make it work – or not.”

Tips for the slopes from Osborne

Read this article by Matthew Norman in today's Independent.  You'll either love it or .....

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/matthew-norman/matthew-norman-osbornes-prescription-could-soon-turn-into-his-epitaph-2201254.html

Funny schools are no joke and nor are they free

This morning The Mirror has a story that one of the Chuckle Brothers (for those who don’t know the Chuckle Brothers are a comedy act) wants to use taxpayers’ money to open a school, with his son’s Tory partner as head.

Barry Elliott, 66, who stars in Chucklevision alongside his brother Paul, 63, hopes to set up the ‘free’ secondary in South Yorkshire where he grew up.

His son’s teacher girlfriend Charlotte Blencowe, 30, would be the head of the Rotherham Central Free School.

Elliott is one of 240 bidders hoping to set up free schools across the country.

As you know free schools, which are similar to and based on an American model, are outside local authorities control. They can be set up by, well pretty much anybody, and are the pet project of Conservative Education Secretary Michael Gove.  Guess what, the Chuckle Brothers latest touring show gives a very graphic idea of how the school will work.  Billed as a  “Half term treat” for one performance only at the Civic Hall Bedworth (motto Art with a Heart) the synopsis on the show is advertised as follows

“Barry Potty and his best friend, brother Paul accidentally arrive at Pigsnorts School of Magic.

They actually took a wrong turn on the motorway as they had bought a second hand sat-nav at a car boot sale and it’s in German?

They were on their way for an interview at a different school as handy-men and now they are totally confused!

Paul shouts Barry, I don’t think this is the right school?

Yes it is says Paul, I don’t often get things wrong!

But it is the wrong school and strange things start to happen with magical illusions and a story that could be an episode of ChuckleVision.”

Tickets £12.50

Great stuff eh!