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 Monday 9th August 2010
Ditch the graduate taxWhat's David Willetts up to? His suggestion that graduates should make a "bigger contribution" towards the cost of higher education has been universally interpreted as an indication that the Universities Minister favours a graduate tax over an increase in tuition fees. But does he? In fact, an increase in tuition fees would also mean graduates making a "bigger contribution" since they'd have to repay higher loans after they'd graduated. So his statement could be read either way. It beggars belief that Willetts, a thoroughbred conservative intellectual, would actually be in favour of a graduate tax. According to the University and College Union (UCU), if graduates had to pay an additional 5% in income tax, a social worker on average wages would end up paying a total of £37,550 over 25 years, a secondary school teacher £46,046 and a doctor £70,526. Under the present system, by contrast, they each pay a flat fee of £9,440 for their degrees. (To read more, click here.)
Saturday 7th August 2010
Hunt sab's spoof backfires spectacularlyIt must have seemed like a good idea at the time. Former hunt saboteur Chris Atkins was so angry about the media coverage of the fox attack on the nine-month-old twins in Hackney he decided to make a hoax video depicting a group of urban fox hunters beating a fox to death in an alleyway with baseball bats. "We wanted to create something that would be so ridiculous that in any other area it would be immediately dismissed as a spoof, but that news outlets desperate to continue the media narrative against foxes would leap on without any thought as to its authenticity," says Atkins. But if the targets of Atkins' satire were supposed to be over-zealous reporters, the stunt backfired spectacularly. Within hours of the video being posted on YouTube and Facebook, Atkins and his collaborator, Johnny Howorth, started receiving death threats. According to a report in yesterday's Guardian: "Animal rights campaigners had expressed fury over the 'bloodthirsty' huntsmen, eliciting the support of MPs on Twitter and prompting an inquiry by the Metropolitan police's wildlife crime unit." (To read more, click here.)
Thursday 5th August 2010
Proposition 8: Hollywood is the capital of gay hypocrisyThere was much rejoicing in Hollywood yesterday following the ruling of a federal judge in San Francisco that Proposition 8, which outlawed same-sex marriage in the state of California, is unconstitutional. "This just in: Equality won," tweeted Ellen DeGeneres. Ricky Martin's joy was unconfined: "YEAHHHHH!!!!! #PROP8UNCONSTITUTIONAL MOVING FORWARD!!!!!!!!" It's a pity Martin didn't condemn Proposition 8 in 2008 when it was first brought forward by anti-gay campaigners. As a role model for many Latino men, Martin's opposition might have dissuaded some of them from voting for it. But then he hadn't come out as a gay man at that point. He didn't take that step until March of this year and some mean-spirited commentators suggested it was only because he had a book to promote. Up until then the successful Puerto Rican singer and actor had never disclosed he was gay and even fathered two children. (To read more, click here.)
Wednesday 4th August 2010
Government advisor recommends I-Spy for long car journeysIs this the first silly season story of the summer? Jean Gross, a communications advisor to the government, has warned that watching DVDs and playing video games on long car journeys can damage children's language skills. Instead, she recommends playing I-Spy. "Children develop in close contact with adults," she says. "This is your chance to double their vocabulary." Funnily enough, I wrote about my efforts to play I-Spy with my children on long car journeys in The Spectator three months ago. You can read the full piece here, but here's an extract: Sasha, our six-year-old, is pathologically competitive. When it’s her turn, which it is at least 50 per cent of the time, she’ll always come up with something fiendishly complicated such as “I spy with my little eye something beginning with ‘r-h-t’.” That is to say, three words rather than one. After five minutes, when nobody’s managed to guess it, she’ll say, “D’you give up?” “Certainly not,” I’ll say, even though I know it’s hopeless. Finally, after exhausting every possibility, I’ll reluctantly concede defeat. “Right hand turn,” she’ll say, quickly followed by, “Okay, my turn again.” (To read more, click here.)
Tuesday 3rd August 2010
The best way of persuading middle class parents to send their kids to state schoolsThere's a rather poignant article by John Crace in The Guardian this morning about Haverstock comprehensive, the alma mater of the Miliband brothers and Oona King. The headline on the paper's website reads 'Move Over Eton' – a reference to the fact that Haverstock could boast the next Prime Minister and the next Mayor of London among its alumni – and the piece ends with a little table comparing the two schools. But the sad truth is that Haverstock is a long, long way from posing any meaningful challenge to David Cameron and Boris Johnson's alma mater. In the third paragraph Crace reveals that only 38% of the school's students got five GCSEs at grade C or above including Maths and English last year. That's well below the London average of 53%. Why isn't the school doing better? Not surprisingly, it has nothing to do with a lack of resources. As New Labour discovered during its 13-year reign of error, pouring money into state schools has little impact on attainment and Haverstock is no exception. It was expensively rebuilt six years ago and boasts a state-of-the-art modern facade. (To read more, click here.)
Monday 2nd August 2010
Chelsea Clinton's insult to dead British intelligence officerI knew the Clintons were shameless, but Chelsea's wedding to Marc Mezvinsky takes the biscuit. I'm not talking about the nauseating, showbiz excess of the whole affair – the equivalent of £6,400 was spent on each of the 500 guests, including £7,000 for a vegan and gluten-free cake. Nor am I referring to the fact that the groom's father, former Congressman Ed Mezvinsky, was described by the judge who sentenced him to five years for fraud in 2001 as a "one man crime wave". Not the first time a Clinton has been linked to a convicted felon and undoubtedly not the last. No, it's the fact that Chelsea and Marc included a poem called 'The Life That I Have' in their wedding vows. In the Daily Mail's account of the wedding, it attributes the verse to Leo Marks and says that it featured in the 1958 film Carve Her Name with Pride about Violette Szabo. True, but that scarcely does justice to its significance. Leo Marks is most famous for having written the script for Peeping Tom, a cult British film directed by Michael Powell, but he was also an exceptionally gifted cryptographer who worked as the Special Operation Executive's head of codes during the Second World War. (To read more, click here.)
Thursday 29th July 2010
Did Cameron and Clegg discuss a Lib/Con pact before the election?I'm greatly looking forward to Five Days That Changed Britain, tonight's Nick Robinson documentary on the aftermath of the general election. It includes interviews with all the key players apart from Gordon Brown. Robinson has a fascinating piece in today's Telegraph in which he reveals some of the film's contents, including the revelation that Brown and his team were completely wrong-footted by Cameron's "big, open and comprehensive offer" to the Liberal Democrats on the morning of Friday, May 7. Brown was expecting Cameron to call for his resignation, clearing the way for a Conservative minority government, and thought the offer to the Lib Dems was a political miscalculation. "Brown regarded it as a mistake since it legitimised a deal-making, coalition-building process which Brown believed could only end one way – with a Lib/Lab government," writes Robinson. (To read more, click here.)
Wednesday 28th July 2010
Labour's shameless opportunism on AVIt's shameless even by the standards of New Labour. Shadow Justice Secretary Jack Straw announced on the Today programme this morning that Labour would oppose the Coalition's bill paving the way for a referendum on PR. That's a bit rich, given that a commitment to AV was in the Labour Party's last manifesto and the Party's internal electoral system – the one it's using to select a new leader – is itself AV. As David Cameron says, this is a "descent into complete and utter opportunism": "I know what it is like in opposition. I did almost five years as leader of the opposition. The temptation to jump on the bandwagon and be opportunistic is always there and it should always be resisted." (To read more, click here.)
Tuesday 27th July 2010
How did sleeping in a tent become a high status indicator?I'm just back from the Port Eliot Festival in Cornwall, an annual jamboree for the class John Maynard Keynes described as the "educated bourgeoisie". As my colleague Harry Mount pointed out, there was much to admire at Port Eliot, particularly the gentle curiosity of the Festival-goers. Few audiences are as polite or well-informed as those at literary festivals and I speak as someone who has delivered two-dozen talks on the subject of education this year. What distinguishes Port Eliot from other, similar gatherings is the sheer number of people who camp at the site. I pitched my tent in a field of approximately 500 campers and we were opposite another field containing at least 1,000 more. The majority were couples with young children, creating a refugee camp effect. Wherever you looked there were couples hunched over tiny gas stoves, boiling up saucepans of baked beans and frying sausages as their children scurried about at their feet. What was so striking about them was how homogenous they were. Almost no black or brown faces and, without exception, middle class or above. This was the white, metropolitan elite at play. Indeed, I heard one yummy mummy scold her nine-year-old son for telling another child that his uncle was a Duke. It was the first time I've been camping with my wife and children and I felt as if I'd stumbled across a hitherto unknown subculture. (To read more, click here.)
Tuesday 27th July 2010
Will Ed Balls be Labour's kingmaker?Rather surprisingly, Ed Balls finds himself in quite a good position following the decision of the Unite union to back Ed Miliband. He has no hope of winning the leadership, obviously, but that was probably never a realistic expectation. Rather, his reason for throwing his hat into the ring was in the hope of strengthening his claim on the Shadow Chancellorship. In fact, he's proved surprisingly unpopular, not only with the trade unions (the leaders of the GMB and Unison have also thrown their weight behind Miliband Jr.), but with Labour Party members too. Just 14 local party branches have nominated him compared to 106 endorsing Ed Miliband and 130 brother David. Balls's problem, as he himself said on Saturday, is that the other Ed has emerged as the Brownite faction's best hope of defeating the Blairite front-runner. (To read more, click here.)
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