GOVE HITS SCHOOLS, TEACHERS AND PUPILS WHERE IT HURTS !

While most of the Tory members of the Cabinet are namby-pamby wets, one stands out as a go-getting hardliner - Michael Gove.

Already facing criticism from the left wing, egalitarian liberals who infest our society, over his decision not to reappoint one Baroness Morgan as the head of 'OFSTED', he's now announced that he wants our schools to bring back 'traditional punishments' as  response to bad behaviour by their pupils. Gove sees this as meaning the return of proper detentions, lines and more community-based sanctions such as cleaning classrooms or weeding school grounds.

Baroness Morgan is a Labour life peer and a former adviser to Tony Blair; it can hardly be a surprise that a Tory-led administration would want to bring in a more like-minded head for such an important QUANGO, but that hasn't stopped Gove's deputy, the expenses fiddling Liberal David Laws, from being reported as being 'furious' with his boss over the matter. Gove simply says that he feels it is time to refresh the leadership of OFSTED; what's wrong with that ?

As for classroom discipline, it's surely about time that teachers were given the power to exert some genuine control over the louts whom they are often called upon to educate. Unsurprisingly, teachers unions, all predominantly left-wing bodies, are jumping up and down in their usual hysterical fashion but without actually saying anything very meaningful; effectively, they're just carrying out their normal activity of opposing anything which a right wing government attempt to do to improve our failed education system.

Listening to Gove on today's 'Andrew Marr show' on the BBC, he's now chucked in another little bomb, suggesting that it's high time the little darlings worked a bit harder by having longer school days. In my time at school, we worked from 9-4 with a lunch break and a short morning break; now, it seems, that the school day is more like 9-3 with frequent 'free' periods in between and, of course, an emphasis on a plethora of 'life style' subjects aimed at indoctrinating children in areas such as equality and diversity, personal relationships and so on. My own knowledge from teenagers of my acquaintance is that they do very little at school which is of any use to them and that there's very little in the way of sanctions for bad behaviour. One 'A'- level pupil, whom I know, spends no more than a handful of hours at school plus a few more at a placement; her actual effort is minimal and yet she expects to gain the equivalent of 4 'A'-levels in due course and then go on to university. When I was at school, she'd have been lucky to get on an 'A'-level course, let alone go to university.

It's well passed the time for a radical overhaul of our education system and Gove may well be the man to do it, if he's given long enough at the job. That, of course, is the issue, as always in British politics. Unless the Conservatives win the next election he'll be out of a job by May next year and that will be that.

CYCLISTS MUST WEAR HELMETS, SAYS ASA.

It isn't only the Labour Party that loves to ban things "for our own good".

The organisation 'Cycling Scotland' (a ridiculous name, I might add) has produced a television advertisement designed to promote driver awareness of cyclists; apparently it shows a cyclist and encourages drivers to give such road users the same amount of space as they would a horse. Pretty simple and pretty obvious, one might think, but not to the autocrats at the Advertising Standards Authority.

The problem seems to be that the cyclist in the film is not wearing a helmet. Although wearing a helmet is not a legal requirement, the ASA has ruled that that not wearing one is, in their words, "socially irresponsible" and they've ruled that the advertisement must not be shown again.

I have no idea who are the members of the ASA but it's clear that they are another bunch of left-leaning liberals who are determined to impose their social standards on the rest of us. Their role is to ensure that advertising is fair, honest and legal, not to rule as to its "social responsibility". Given the nature of many of the advertisements which pass scrutiny with no problem - I think particularly of the many highly irresponsible ones for 'Pay day Loans', not to mention the utterly corrupt 'Insurance for the over-50s market' - one has to wonder, in any case, how the ASA determines what is and what is not "socially responsible".

Of all of the reasons for Scots to vote for independence in September, removing themselves from the ambit of this interfering organisation must be one of the most compelling.

BAN SMOKING !!

Representatives of the Labour Party, and many others who believe that they know best and should set the rules that the rest of us must follow, are at it again.

It's reported today that Labour Peers in the House of Lords are to table an amendment to the "Children and Families Bill" which would make it illegal for anyone to smoke in a car in which children are also travelling. The Labour Party has also said that if the amendment is not supported, they will include such a proposal in their manifesto for the next election.

I am no supporter of smoking, which I see as being a dirty, smelly, addictive and unhealthy habit. If it was truly banned tomorrow, so be it, but the way in which governments keep tinkering with the law surrounding it is pointless and stupid. Should the Labour Lords get their way with this latest piece of nonsense, it will introduce yet another largely unenforced and unenforceable law into the vast array of madcap social legislation which already exists. How on earth will the police monitor offenders ? How many offenders will ever be caught ? What penalties will they suffer ? Will this be another money making scheme for local councils to exploit, with excessive fixed penalties for the handful of miscreants who are captured, while the vast majority of offenders go unnoticed and unpunished ?

When we have so many much more pressing problems, how is it that our masters can find so much time for the pursuit of such nonsense ?

MIDDLE CLASS TO PAY EXTRA FOR STATE SCHOOLS ?

Anthony Seldon, headmaster of the innovative 'Wellington College' has a new idea; he wants to stop those with a bit of money from accessing state education for free.


Notwithstanding that anyone earning much more than £40,000 a year already has 42% of the excess stolen by the government at source, Seldon now wants higher earners, whom he defines as families with an income of over £80,000 a year, to have to pay if their children go to the 'most popular' state schools; presumably this would be regardless of whether the school in question was simply the local school. He believes that such an approach would break what he sees as the 'middle class stranglehold on top state schools' and would provide funds for reinvestment in other areas of education. As an aside, he also says that 'poorer pupils' should fill a quarter of private school places.


Seldon’s views have been published in a report he’s produced for the left-of-centre ‘Social Market Foundation’ and are another attack on everyone who has anything. Conflating the ‘most popular’ schools with the ‘best’ would hand socialist councillors and ministers a heaven-sent opportunity to milk the so-called rich wherever they live. The reference to a ‘middle class stranglehold’ is so nebulous as to be useless in any arena other than that patrolled by the left wing politicians who hate anyone seen to be ‘middle class’.


I haven't read the report, only the media reports of it, but there is no indication that Seldon has taken any account of the variation of earnings across the country or, indeed, the variation in schools and educational standards across the nation. He doesn't appear to have paid attention to the aspirations of those of 'middle class' who want to get the best for their children from the assorted, and significant, taxes that they already pay. His approach seems to be focused on money rather than education and it would be the children of the middle classes, those on whom the future of the country depends, who would suffer.


In all honesty, if I was younger and with children, I'd be booking my tickets and leaving this benighted country. As John Betjeman once said of Slough 'It isn't fit for humans now'.

MIKAEEL KULAR CASE HAS ECHOES OF MADELEINE McCANN.

The discovery of a body thought to be that of the missing child, Mikaeel Kular, can be no more than was expected.

The disappearance of the 3 year old a couple of days ago was always suspicious and his mother's suggestion that he must have got up in the middle of the night, dressed himself and somehow got out of his home unaided was always going to test the credulity of more intelligent people. The supposed 'sightings' of the boy wandering around on his own were no more than the usual demonstration of the extent to which some crave attention; if, indeed, people had seen a small child on his own, why hadn't they done more than simply tell the police ?

As is so often the case when small children go missing, it looks as though the culprits were close to home. Despite the hue and cry, the local police must have known this from the beginning and will undoubtedly have been watching the family closely throughout. The only people who seem not to have accepted the probable truth were the Kular family's neighbours, perhaps understandably, and the media, most specifically the BBC, which, as usual, milked this tragic story for all it was worth.  

One's thoughts return to the story of Madeleine McCann, another 3 year old who went missing and who has been sought high and low, far and wide, while the media, and others, have profited from the story. What happened to her ?

SAME OLD LABOUR, SAME OLD INTERFERENCE.

Having committed to interfering with the energy industry should his party win the next general election, Ed Miliband is now threatening to get involved in the banks.

No one can support overcharging by the energy companies or profligacy in the banks, but one suspects that the truth of both issues is nowhere near what Miliband would have us believe. The banking crisis was, undoubtedly, a partial consequence of the actions of those banks, though it's also the case that the Labour government had its greasy and grubby hands deep in that particular mire too. As for the energy companies, I'm far from convinced that they do overcharge to the extent that is claimed, though they certainly do make their tariffs and bills as confusing as they can.

Whatever the shortcomings of these major industries, the one thing that would be guaranteed to make them less efficient, less commercial and less reliable would be more government interference in their running.

Same old Labour, same old meddling and same old mess.

LEE RIGBY KILLERS SHOULD HANG.

Now that the 2 animals who murdered Lee Rigby have been found guilty, all that remains is the sentence.

 

In order to serve real justice, they should be hanged. Sadly, we're no longer allowed to deliver proper justice because of a whole load of left wing, namby-pamby policies that are pursued by governments of all hues in the so-called 'civilised world, which means that the only answer is for them to be locked away for the rest of their miserable lives. No possibility of release, ever; no possibility of parole or a comfortable open prison. This is a case where 'life' really must mean 'life'.

 

 Creatures like them have no place on this earth, let alone living in our society.

PORTILLO BRINGS SANITY TO MANDELA EXTRAVAGANZA.

A few days ago, on the BBC's "This Week", Michael Portillo said a few things which few would have dared to voice. He pointed out the appallingly one-sided nature of the coverage of the death of Nelson Mandela, singling out the BBC for particular criticism. He also criticized the way in which the BBC had despatched a vast army of reporters and others to South Africa, all effectively at public expense, in order to join in on the global media extravaganza.

 

Portillo did not decry Mandela but what he did do was to draw attention to the adulatory nature of virtually all of the media coverage, which ignored his life before his release from prison in 1990; that he was not a man devoid of faults was never mentioned.

 

Mandela was a communist terrorist and was imprisoned for the consequences of those beliefs and consequent actions. The way in which the global media has fallen over itself in its attempts to outdo its competitors in its adulation of Mandela is sickening. The way in which the likes of Obama and Cameron competed for attention at the memorial service, equally so.

 

When I was at school with Portillo, we were never close even though we were in the same class. When he began to climb the Tory ranks, I found him increasingly unlikeable. However, since he quit the political scene, he has become an increasingly sane voice in an increasingly mad world and I now look forward to his televisual appearances. On this occasion, he astonished me with his comments and views, which mirror my own precisely.

 

A world which thinks only of media celebrity needs an occasional voice of sanity, and Portillo provides that. More power to his elbow.

CAMERON, NIGELLA AND A JUDGE.

A few days ago, David Cameron was reported to have said that he was a great supporter of Nigella Lawson, a 'massive fan' and was on 'team Nigella'. Today, a judge made it clear that Cameron's comments were, to say the least, ill-advised, given that Ms Lawson is currently involved in a trial in which 2 former employees are accused of defrauding Lawson and her former husband, Charles Saatchi.

 

That Cameron was, to put it bluntly, an idiot for making the highly supportive remarks that he did while the subject of them is involved in a serious criminal trial is obvious; that the judge was right to criticise him for it, equally so. However, what is most concerning is that a Prime Minister could be so blinded by a desire to be associated with a 'celebrity' that he failed to apply any element of intelligence to his remarks.

 

If Cameron can be so easily caught out on something so obvious, how on earth can we trust the running of the country to him ? 

EDUCATION - WHAT EDUCATION ?

The OECD has sparked off a furious political row in the UK with its latest 'Pisa' educational test results. As if we didn't already know it, the UK is falling behind almost every other developed or developing country in its ability to educate our children; apparently, we are no longer ranked in the top 20 of international performers in mathematics, reading or science; within the UK, England performed worse than Scotland in mathematics and reading, while Wales was the poorest performer in all 3 subjects.

 

Labour and the Conservatives are now busy accusing each other of failing our children, failing to implement necessary educational reforms and so on an so forth. Neither has admitted to any failings of their own and both have simply proved how abysmal have been their activities on the education front over a period of many decades.

 

Anyone who has any experience of children and their education knows, without doubt, that the current system is a mess. Teachers are more concerned about making out health and safety reports for every bump and scrape than they are about educating their charges; they spend time and effort on fund raising in every possible way and in promoting a vast range of 'cultural' activities, rather than in teaching reading, writing and arithmetic. Is it any wonder that great swathes of children leave primary school still unable to read, write or add up ?

 

Once they become teenagers, things become even worse. Science classes no loner have much in the way of 'hands-on' science, due to costs, the availability of suitably qualified teachers and that hoary old chestnut, health and safety; the wonder of science is, consequently, destroyed. The pupils are subject to no effective discipline and can happily ignore lessons whenever they like; many, it seems, spend lesson time on their mobile 'phones, texting others in the class or friends outside. The teachers seem powerless to act.

 

Examinations have been rendered almost useless by the huge amount of 'continuous assessment' that has been included in final grades; with the emphasis on league tables, schools have been sorely tempted to be overly-generous in the marking of their children, so as to appear to be doing better than the lot down the road. Again, the result has been children with 'AS' and 'A' level grades which simply do not reflect their true level of attainment; the better universities have been complaining for many years about the effect this has on them, but to no avail.

 

The nonsensical ideology of university as being a right rather than a privilege has been a further problem. Large numbers of former technical colleges, polytechnics art colleges and so on have been granted university status and award degrees, far too often in pointless subjects and to students who simply shouldn't be at university. This approach is, of course, beloved by the educational fraternity as it provides them with jobs and status - imagine being a Professor, even if it is of Park Management at the University of West Wittering !

 

Sadly, the 'university for all' approach has also been favoured by successive governments who've seen it as a way to reduce the unemployment figures. By keeping children at school until they're 18 and then sending most of them to university until they're 21 or 22, millions have been removed from the 'dole' and from claiming other benefits; if this was to be reversed, the revelation of the true parlous state of our nation might just terrify us all.

 

What is needed is a return to a few 'old fashioned' values. Reintroduce Grammar Schools and discipline in the classroom; stop the namby-pamby nonsense of health and safety at every turn and get back to some proper teaching. Do away with 'children's rights' and the nonsense of university being a 'right'; it is a privilege for those for whom it may be beneficial, for the rest it is a distraction and even an impediment to getting a job.

 

Until some government really takes a grip on all of this, our children will continue to stagnate and our country will continue to slide down the international league tables, while China, Korea, Singapore and the rest will become more and more dominant.

SALMOND HEADS FOR HIS OWN CULLODEN.

A couple of days ago, Alex Salmond's lot in the chilly wastes of Scotland published their plans for an independent nation. That these plans are peppered with so many assumptions and holes that are worthless has been missed by very few.

 

Salmond wants his 'country' to be independent and yet he also wants to keep almost everything it currently has - the Queen as Head of State, the pound sterling as its currency, membership of the European Union etc., etc. He seems to have a notion that Scotland is the most successful and productive part of the United Kingdom, based on a variety of past issues and the belief that North Sea oil will last forever. What he really seems to want is to turn the clock back some 300 years, to the days when Scotland was little more than a collection of fiefdoms, nominally under the overlordship of a king or queen.

 

Salmond is attempting to con the Scots into voting for independence by promising them that the only significant change they would see would be the cessation of control from Westminster. This is, of course, nonsense. His assertion that a newly independent Scotland would still be a member of the EU has been refuted by a raft of EU officials; they are united in saying that Scotland would have to make a fresh application for membership and take its place in the queue.

 

Whether or not the Queen would wish to remain as Head of State is another question; would she wish to be Head of State of a foreign country which had rejected the old Union ? Would, indeed, the people and government of England, Wales and Northern Ireland wish to share their monarch with a foreign country which had shown such antipathy to the Union ?

 

Regarding Salmond's stated intention of retaining sterling as the new nation's currency, he has again made a claim which ignores European rules. Any new nation wishing to join the EU is required to adopt the Euro as its currency; Scotland would be no different, whatever Salmond might want. Even if this were not the case, would the Government of the reduced United Kingdom wish to share its currency ? What would be the effects on both Scotland and the nation it had left ? Tying itself to a foreign currency would certainly have a significant impact on the ability of a Scottish government to manage its own monetary affairs independently and might well make many of Salmond's other plans for a future economy impossible to achieve. One has only to look at the mess of the Eurozone to see this.

 

Salmond is a fanatic and all fanatics are dangerous. In his case, he is dangerous to the stability and future of a country, the United Kingdom, which has endured since the Act of Union in 1707. Salmond is also dangerous to his homeland, Scotland which, by the way, has not really been a country in an international sense since that same Act; it is part of the United Kingdom in the same way that New South Wales is part of Australia and California is part of the USA.

 

If the Scots want to go their own way, so be it, but let it be for genuine and supportable reasons, not the hyperbole of a mad modern-day Jacobite.  The one good thing about this whole process is that it will all be over by the end of next year, at least for a generation or two.

ANTI-SMOKING FASCISTS AT IT AGAIN.

Now that the anti-smoking lobby has become all-powerful, one of the multitude of Government QUANGOs, "The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence", has decided that it's time to push the boundaries even further. They want to ban smoking in all hospital grounds in England, whether the 'offender' be patient, visitor or staff.

 

No one can deny that smoking is bad for you. It causes a raft of illnesses and it's smokey and smelly; its odours stick to your clothes in an unpleasant fashion. However, the constant barrage of criticism of smokers, regular excessive price rises, gory packaging and bans galore have surely gone far enough unless the Government intends a total ban on the sale and use of tobacco products. If this is what it wants to do, it should get on with it, otherwise, it should back off.

 

None of the measures introduced to date appear to have done much to prevent children from sampling and becoming addicted to the 'forbidden fruit' of cigarettes any more than has a plethora of sex education stopped them from becoming sexually active at ever-younger ages. The sad truth is that banning smokers from smoking is of little use; it is stopping the addiction from being developed that matters and no one is doing anything about this.

 

The imbeciles sitting in their comfortable offices at the Institute seem not to have thought about their latest pronouncement very carefully. People in hospital, whether patients, staff or visitors, are nearly all adults; their lifestyles have been developed and changing them is far from easy. Banning all smoking on hospital property would have a number of unwelcome consequences.

 

Firstly, the availability of staff would be reduced as many of them no doubt smoke; regardless of the known dangers, a habit caught in childhood proves very difficult to break and some may be unable, or not even want, to break it - are they to be sacked ?

 

Secondly, most patients are elderly with habits formed over lifetimes of many decades; for some, one of their few remaining pleasures may be a cigarette now and again - are these people to be denied a little pleasure at a time when they are already sick and, perhaps, dying ? My own grandfather gave up smoking on medical advice when it was already too late, and 'enjoyed' 5 years of increasing incapacity, which turned into a living hell, rather than 2 years of relative happiness. After smoking for 50, 60 or 70 years, can there be any justification for depriving such people of an occasional drag ?

 

Thirdly, if there is to be nowhere that people can smoke, some may decide that going to hospital is not for them; they'd rather put on a brave face and hope for the best, while sitting at home and getting out a packet of their favourite brand. The result of such a move would be, inevitably, that such people would not be admitted to hospital until they are very ill and require much more intensive care than would otherwise have been the case.  

 

Fourthly, have the Institute's experts given any thought to the calming effects that a little nicotine can have on an otherwise stressed smoker ? Do they actually have any understanding of the ways in which smoking acts, not scientifically but in real, everyday life ? While many smokers smoke because they enjoy it, for many it is an essential part of their lives; it is, after all, a narcotic addiction. To tell a prospective patient that they need hospitalisation for a week or two and, by the way, you won't be able to smoke, may be impossible to accept or, even if it is accepted, impossible to stick to. The result could be dangerously aggressive patients with nowhere to go.

 

Finally, there is universal acceptance that visitors can play an important role in the recovery of patients. However, knowing that there will be nowhere close by where they can nip off to have a quick smoke might easily deter many from bothering to visit. Smoking is not something that can be turned on and off like a tap; when the urge strikes, it has to be satisfied. Fewer visitors (and car park revenues) and longer recoveries could easily result.

 

I'm not a smoker and never have been. I don't particularly like others smoking, but this constant banging on about bans annoys me intensely. If the Government thinks it's wrong, BAN IT ALTOGETHER; stop picking away at it and do the deed. Stop the supply of cigarettes at source and make them prescription only for existing registered smokers. Yes, such a move would cause a few problems but it would be a clean and simple break with past behaviour, unlike the entirely ridiculous mess we currently have and that some want to make even more difficult, confused and unmanageable. 

PHILLIPINES STORM DWARFS BRITAIN'S LITTLE BLOW.

A couple of weeks ago, Britain experienced a storm; from the media coverage, anyone would have thought that it was a major event of cataclysmic effect which, of course, it was not. It was actually a pretty minor affair bringing a bit of wind and rain but little else.

 

Over the last couple of days a storm of an altogether different nature has ripped through the Phillipines, bringing death and destruction to thousands. Winds of extraordinary force, torrential rain and massive tides have virtually wiped out one city and brought chaos across the country. At least 10,000 people are believed to have been killed and many, many more have been made homeless; the devastation is enormous.

 

One can only wonder how the people who have lost friends and family, in addition to everything they owned, will manage. One can also wonder how the people of Britain would cope should such a real storm strike these islands. It hardly bears thinking about. 

EU MADNESS CARRIES ON UNABATED - VOTE UKIP !

Today it's being reported that the CBI, the organisation that represents the views of many of the bigger companies in the UK, is in favour of continued membership of the European Union. This is hardly surprising as the CBI membership includes many multi-national companies which want the least possible obstruction to their trading arrangements; many of these companies are also in favour of the UK joining the catastrophe that is the 'Euro', indicating just how 'European' their managements are.

 

While this stance of the CBI is merely a reiteration of their longstanding position, their report comes on the same day that it's also reported that EU lunatics want to standardize the power of vacuum cleaners and a few days after it was announced that they want to standardize the water volume of toilet flushes.

 

This may all sound completely mad, but these measures have been reported on the jolly old pro-EU BBC, so it seems highly likely that they're true. What will we have next ? An EU standard for the amount of water we can use to shower or bathe ? Perhaps a standard for the cutting power of lawn mowers ?

 

When will this idiocy end ? We can start the process in next May's European elections - VOTE UKIP !

LIVING WAGE MEANS CUTS IN BENEFITS.

Miliband minor, reputed leader of something called "The Labour Party", has come up with another vote-winning wheeze; he's promising to introduce the "living wage" should his mob be elected to power in 2015.

 

Notwithstanding the nonsense of the "living wage", what Miliband has not exactly dwelt upon is that every penny extra which an employee would receive in their wage packets would be taken away by the benefits' system. The total paid to families in tax credits, housing and council tax benefits would be reduced to compensate for the extra employment income and, overall, the vast majority of recipients would be no better off. The one lasting effect of Miliband's proposal would be a significant additional burden on businesses, not to mention public services such as health, education and local government.

 

The additional wages, without additional productivity, mean rising costs, higher prices and inflation; people will not be better off. Miliband's policy in this direction is nothing but a cynical attempt to con voters into voting for his misbegotten bunch of hypocrites. Don't be fooled.