Too schooled for cool
When faced with the dilemma of my education, my parents poured over the prospectuses for Poshington College and Gasworks Comprehensive. After much anguished hand-wringing, they came to the right decision. David Cameron has been similarly wrestling with the knotty issue – and has now decided to send his sprogs to London comps (“pathetic!” barked the rather mean Labour Boy).
While the headlines focussed on Cameron’s announcement regarding his own offspring, he and Michael Gove were also unveiling policy of substance – most eye-catchingly, encouraging the institutions of civil society to establish schools. Will Rhodes felt that a cross-party consensus on the future of state education is necessary to make any long-term reforms effective – and that local authorities are a malign force in the governance of comprehensive schools, explaining: “I don’t care what the LEAs say – they are as politically motivated as the parties who are kicking them around”.
Letters from a Tory was impressed by the idea of “state funding supporting independent public service providers in the name of social justice,” but concerned that Dave was creating a rod for his own back.
“You turned your nose up at around 15 primaries near your West London home to send your five-year-old daughter to an Anglican state school because you wanted to do what’s best for your children,” he recalled.
But while Cameron’s pledge might be interpreted as an act of expedient solidarity with the increasingly hard-up middle classes, the role of his wife Samantha should not be underestimated. As Sam Coates noted some weeks ago on his Red Box blog – she is something of an enthusiast for state education.
In the same week, the Lib Dems unveiled their own education proposals, including a commitment to cut class sizes to 15 and more detail on the party’s plans for a Pupil Premium to help disadvantaged children. Islington candidate Bridget Fox joined her party leader for the policy launch at a North London school. She later blogged that Clegg had cracked “that’ll put them off,” in response to learning that pupils were to visit Westminster to learn more about politics. Never a truer word said in jest…
What have we learned this week?
On Facebook, Nick Clegg shows his yoof cred by embracing the ’25 random things’ meme. We learn that his great-great aunt dated HG Wells and that he once wrote a (“terrible”) novel. It couldn’t have been worse than Iain Duncan Smith’s ‘The Devil’s Tune,’ surely.
Around the World
To New Zealand, where Jafapete on the left of centre Kiwipolitico has been reflecting on Waitangi, the national holiday marking the conclusion of the treaty which made the Maori people British subjects.
Jafapete expressed concern that the idea of national unity is: “often used to conceal the very real differences between the haves and the have nots in society,” while the Green Party’s frogblog was impressed by the tone in which the day was observed, citing a: “civil debate about the appropriateness of our national anthem, our flag and our other national symbols without any of the polarising name calling I would have expected in the past”.
Videos of the Week
M.I.A remains pretty hot stuff and she got more records than the KGB. Heavily pregnant (indeed, actually due), her ‘Paper Planes’ (which samples the Clash’s ‘Straight to Hell’) was nominated for Record of the Year at the Grammys.
M.I.A’s father was a pro-Tamil independence activist and she has not been shy in using Tiger imagery – prompting one of the more interesting pop rows of last year, when Sri Lankan-American rapper DeLon accused her (through the medium of the “diss video”) of supporting terrorism – allegations which drew an angry rejection of the charge.
Quote of the Week
“You always know when someone is struggling because they say they are “worried”. Will Young was “worried” about every issue, it seemed.”
Iain Dale blogging on the week’s BBC Question Time.
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