HISTORY ZONE: News and politics

First Anniversary

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 08:21:22 GMT

It's a year since I started writing my blog and in that time 17,500 hits have been made on the site, an average of 336 per week. I've added blogs on the following subjects:

Autobiographical fragments: 16 items
Books: 11 items
Chartism: 149 items
Nineteenth century society: 88 items
Nineteenth century women: 56 items
Photographs: 27 albums
Politics and news: 23 items
The Normans: 48 items

It's my intention in the coming year to complete the blogs on Nineteenth century society by including further material on class and on religion, both of which are well advanced in terms of writing, and some materials on Sir Robert Peel.

Nothing to hide, so no problem.

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 10:31:21 GMT

The issue of the excessive use of their powers under terrorist legislation by local authorities is justifiably in the news again. The use of undercover local authority officials, surveillance of individuals suspected of breaking the rules and checking of people's rubbish now seems to be an acceptable norm. One local authority executive used the argument that as his service is consumer-driven and that's what consumers want, then it's a perfectly justifiable use of legislation that was intended to watch for potential terrorists. More worrying is the response of the public whose response seems to fall into either 'well there's nothing we can do about it' or' well I've nothing to hide so it's not a problem for me'. This 'well it doesn't affect me' attitude is breathtakingly naive because it provides the perfect justification for the state, whether local or national, acquiring yet more draconian powers.

It seems increasingly to me that we can't have a grown up debate about rights and freedoms. Not surprising as officialdom is becoming more and more conscious of its powers and appears to be applying them with every increasing intensity and in ways that are offensive and unyielding. Your rubbish bin is slightly open, we won't take your rubbish. You've put some paper in the wrong bin, again you get a red card. Legislation it appears has ceased to enable people, it simply oppresses them. But then, I've got nothing to hide, so that's not a problem! Justifying action simply because that's what the public wants or opinion polls indicate that's what they want, does not make that action right. Yes, in the post 9/11 situation, we need to take action against the threat from terrorism but should the same legislation be applied to people who don't clear up after their dog has fouled a public place or allowing local authorities to check my telephone bill? That was never the intention of Parliament when the legislation was framed. Those who now fail to conform to what is politically correct can find themselves fined and obtaining a criminal record for offences that are trivial and as a result the legislation, local authorities and central government are brought into disrepute. But then, nothing to hide, so no problem!

The Human Rights legislation should protect individuals from government harassment but then I suspect the government wishes it had never passed the legislation given that it tries to subvert it at every available turn. What we now need is a Bill of Rights in which individual rights and freedoms are entrenched in the constitution and where the relationship between the state, local and national, and the individual is defined. We already have a surveillance state with the proliferation of CCTV cameras...19 million at last count and increasing. Do we want a situation where the state defines with detailed precision what we can and cannot do and where the law of the official is enforced with unfeeling intensity? The balance of power has long shifted from the individual to the state and the Millsian notion of freedom in terms of 'the right to do what you chose as long as it's not illegal and causes no harm to others' has long gone. Restoring a proper balance between the necessary rights of the state and the freedoms of the individual is now necessary more than at any time in the past. But then, I've got nothing to hide, so no problem!

What does 'No' mean?

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 08:35:22 GMT

Last Wednesday, after winning the 42 day vote in the House of Commons, Gordon Brown said ' a vote is a vote is a vote'! Yesterday, when the Irish voted no on the Lisbon Treaty, a vote that effectively ends this benighted constitution, he said the process of ratifying it would continue. So have several of the leading figures in the European movement. Only the President of the Czech Republic has had the good grace to admit that the Lisbon Treaty is now dead. It appears that, yet again, democracy is only a good thing when the people vote the way politicians want them to vote. If not, the results are unceremoniously ignored. The Irish have been invited to vote again on European treaties but in this instance this will prove very difficult since there's no obvious reason why the Irish rejected the treaty that the EU Commission can fix. Even if it could what about those countries that have already ratified the treaty, would they be asked to do so again?

The attitude of Euro-politicians and the democratic deficit at the heart of the Union, increasingly a bureaucratic monstrosity with far too much power (if little authority) gives added credence to David Davis' resignation and campaign on the question of the erosion of individual freedoms. That the power of the Union has increased, is increasing and ought to be diminished is self-evident. The problem with this stance is that its proponents are then accused of being anti-Europe when that is frequently not the case. For those of us who believe strongly in the European project and that that project should be transparent and democratically accountable, it shows clearly the arrogance of those in power who appear to believe that they know best and that we should all fall into line behind them. Their freedom to take the course they have determined is seen as more important than our freedom to disagree. This is always the position of those who have lost the argument.

After the defeat of the constitution in France and the Netherlands and now in Ireland (and lets not be mealy mouthed about the treaty, the constitution in all but name), the Commission should be asking what type of Europe do the people want. Now that would be radical thinking. This should be a transparent process linked to referendums in all member countries to get agreement across all member states. Now this will never happen because the one thing that Eurocrats fear is the will of the people and having to put constitutional ideas in a form that people will understand and embrace. It is clear from the Irish result, as much as the French and Dutch decisions that many people do not want a Europe of ever increasing integration. This is evident in opinion polls across the Union. No means no and simply tinkering with the Lisbon treaty will not do.

42 Days

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 09:45:38 GMT

It appears that the DPP doesn't want it, neither do the previous Attorney General and Lord Chancellor, the police appear by their silence to be at least ambivalent about it and now a past prime minister in what must be his most pointed intervention since leaving office in 1997 has cast grave on yet another restriction on our civil liberties. Or, as someone wrote during the 90 day fiasco, just pluck another figure out of the air! So why is the government persisting with the 42 day proposal when it appears most people simply do not see or accept the justification being claimed. Jacqui Smith has let the cat out of the bag in her Spectator article in which she says that if it were a vote of confidence in the government it would pass easily. So it's all about macho-politics and the need for the Prime Minister to reassert his authority over his government. That's no justification for policy.

The government's case appears to be this. We might in the future need to keep a suspect without charge in custody beyond the current inflated 28 days so that we can collect evidence, so it's a valid insurance policy. There is an old adage that says 'work expands to fill the time available' so if it's 42 days you can guarantee that, despite the spurious parliamentary safeguards, the time will be used. Then there's the argument that we need to balance civil liberties with the need to combat the 'war on terror'. Now that's a better position to take but has been fatally flawed by the use local authorities have made of anti-terrorism legislation to snoop on people who appear to be lying about where they live to get their children into the schools of their choice. Whatever the justification of checking on those individuals who try to buck the system for their own or their families benefit, using anti-terrorism legislation to do this resembled the proverbial hammer and nut.

Government of whatever hue appears to be under the impression that you can legislate problems away. Whether it's knife crime or binge drinking or rubbish bins, the first inclination of government appears to be to head for the statute book. Law only works effectively with consent and increasingly it appears that many people do not consent to having their behaviour changed by ham-fisted and often badly drafted legislation. By legislating too much, government dilutes the value of all legislation, good or otherwise. We should be legislating less rather than trying to micro-manage people's lives. Yes, government should inform, advise and warn people. It should pass legislation where necessary but defining personal responsibility in terms of legislation and not allowing individuals to take responsibility for their own actions will mean that increasingly legislative and personal responsibility will merge, the ultimate political control.

If there is justification for 42 days other than it might be needed, then the government should present it. Global terrorism is real and needs to be combated since it threatens the fundamental values of a democratic society. By increasing the powers of the state and reducing the liberties that have been won over centuries, we are in danger of doing the terrorists' job for them. We are already have more camera surveillance than any country on the globe, our anti-terrorism legislation is seen as increasingly draconian and is increasingly being misused by officials who appear not to be accountable to anyone and we appear, in many people's eyes to be sleepwalking into a police state. In these circumstances, macho-politics is inappropriate, offensive and dangerous. Think again, Gordon.

Drive to mass literacy after 1830

Wed, 21 May 2008 08:04:06 GMT

From 1830 there is no doubt that literacy was set for a steady rise for the rest of the century, though inevitably with regional variation in pace. Literacy rates were published by the Registrar General for each census year in percentages.

	1841	1851	1861	1871
Male	67.3	69.3	75.4	80.6
Female	51.1	54.8	65.3	73.2

This was paralleled by growth in the average number of years of schooling for boys: 2.3 years in 1805 to 5 years in 1846-51 to 6.6 years by 1867-71. Various factors lay behind this, but first it is important to consider the motives both of educators and of educated that made this possible.

The Churches were concerned with the salvation of souls and the winning back of the irreligious working class urban population to Christianity. The Church of England felt itself under attack from a revival of Nonconformity and Catholicism in the 1830s. By 1870 there were 8,798 voluntary assisted schools of which 6,724 were National Society Schools. At a more secular level the long period of radical unrest from the 1790s to the 1840s created deep anxiety about order and social control. Richard Johnson put it well when he says: ‘The early Victorian obsession with the education of the poor is best understood as a concern about authority, about power, about the assertion (or the reasserting) of control.’
In Spitalfields much education was aimed at controlling the population in the interests of social and economic stability. In the north eastern coalfields coal owners created schools attached to collieries in the 1850s as a means of social control following damaging strikes in 1844.
The social control argument was an old one dating back to the Sunday Schools, the SPCK Charity schools and beyond. These suggested that schooling and literacy would make the poor unfit for the performance of menial tasks because it would raise their expectations. Even worse, the acquisition of literate skills would make the working classes receptive to radical and subversive literature. This was the essential dilemma: whether to deny education to the poor and so avoid trouble, or whether to provide ample education in the hope that it would serve as an agent of social control. By the late 1830s the latter ideology dominated the minds of policy makers: education was seen as a means of reducing crime and the rising cost of punishment and also as a way of keeping the child or the child when adult out of the workhouse.

In the 1860s these views were joined by two other that presaged the 1870 Act. The victories of Prussia and the northern States of America suggested that good levels of education contributed to military efficiency. At home the Reform Act 1867 prompted concern to ensure the education of those who would soon wield political power through an extended franchise: ‘we must now education our masters’ spoke Robert Lowe, a leading Conservative politician.

Education may have been of limited value for actual job performance, but it had important wider bearings on the creation of an industrial society. It made it possible for people to be in touch with a basic network of information dispersal and could make labourers aware of the possibilities open to them or the products of consumers. For such reasons a positive belief in the value of education on the part of the authorities replaced earlier assumptions that teaching the poor to read would merely lead to the diffusion of subversive literature and the wholesale flight of the newly educated from menial tasks.

The literacy rate was driven up by the injection of public money into the building and maintenance of elementary schools. This rose from £193,000 in 1850, £723,000 in 1860 to £895,000 by 1870. The money was channelled largely into two religious societies: the Anglican National Society, founded in 1811, and the British and Foreign School Society, a Nonconformist body created three years later. These bodies raised money to build schools usually run on monitorial lines. However, by the early 1830s it was obvious that they were unable to counter the defects in school provision, especially in the north. State funding began in 1833 with investment of about one per cent of national income [a situation that compared favourably with that of the 1920s]. From the 1840s, under the guidance of the Privy Council for Education [established in 1839] and its Secretary James Kay Shuttleworth, expenditure soared as grants were extended from limited capital grants for buildings to equipment [1843], teacher training [1846] and capitation grants for the actual running of schools [1853]. Closer control over these grants was instituted in 1862 with the system of payment by results and by a reduction of teacher training to try and control sharply rising expenditure.

Important though the role of the state and religious societies was in developing literacy levels, some historians have pointed to the large sector of cheap private education where the working classes bought education for their children outside the church and state system. It has been suggested that at least a quarter of working class children were educated in this way. Why did the working class spurn the new National and British schools and choose slightly more expensive, small dame and common day schools? There is no doubt, however, that the expansion of this type of education did result in the creation of a remarkably literate working class.

A major factor in rising literacy was the creation of a teaching profession in elementary schools. The religious societies had their own training colleges before the 1830s and from 1839 many Anglican dioceses established colleges to serve diocesan National Schools. The system received its most important stimulus from the Minutes of 1846 that established the training and career structure for teachers. The 1850s thus saw the rapid rise of a schoolteacher class: there were 681 certificated teachers in 1849 but 6,878 ten years later.
A further important factor was the role of Her Majesty’s Inspectors [HMI] first appointed in 1839 to ensure that the state grant was spent properly. Their duties expanded into more educational roles, examining pupil teachers and the training colleges, calculating the capitation grants of the 1850s and then examining children in the subjects on which the grant was based in the 1860s. They encouraged the replacement of the monitorial system with class teaching. By 1870 their number has risen from 2 to 73.

Mass elementary education was grounded in the basic skills of reading, writing and arithmetic. Religion and bible study was equally central to the religious societies. Attempts to extend the curriculum were stopped when the Revised Code limited grants to the 3Rs and away from the broader cultural subjects. From 1867 history, geography and geometry were made grant-earning subjects but languages and a range of science subjects had to wait until the 1870s. What was learned was important and the development of a body of reading material accessible to the masses was a characteristic feature of the years after 1830. At the school level the SPCK, acting as the publishing arm of the National Society, set up its Committee of General Literature and Education in 1832 to produce schoolbooks. The National Society gradually took over from the SPCK and in 1845 established its own book collection for National schools. The British Society similarly published secular books for schools after 1839.

At an adult level there was a concern among the governing classes to provide edifying books that would divert the minds of the potentially dangerous working classes away from the propaganda of radicalism. The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, established in 1826, issued a library of short books on popular science, history and all types of secular subjects. They were trying to combat the strong tradition of radical literature aimed at the same clientele. Into the market came commercial amusements: Dickens, Gothic and romantic novels and the railway reading of W.H. Smith. The work of the Churches and especially the National Society provided much of the education that pushed up the literacy rate over the mid-century. All this was achieved before the advent of state secular schools or free or compulsory education. Yet it was not enough. Some 39 per cent of children between 3 and 12 were not at school, some one and a half million children. There were one million children for whom there were no school places even had they chosen to attend. The 1870 Act filled in the gaps in areas where voluntary provision was insufficient to absorb the potential children. School Boards were established to build non-sectarian schools and the work of the 2,000 new School Boards and the general compulsory education from 180 finally achieved virtual mass literacy by 1900.

Literacy is an extension of the powers of speech and thought and has, in effect, enabled people to ‘speak’ and ‘think’ in new ways. Nevertheless the spread of literacy has been a two-edged process. For some people, it has been a source of social emancipation yet, for others, it has seemed more of an agency of social control. Those who aspire to retain the status quo sought to harness, if not control, literacy through censorship, licensing of approved printers and the taxation of publications. But this was rarely sufficient. People who had been taught through authorised texts acquired tools that gave them access to politically contentious works

Petrol Prices reach £5 a gallon: who is ripping off whom?

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 09:02:42 GMT

Transport kills! You're driving a lethal weapon not just because if you hit something or someone you might kill them but then there's the pollution and impact on the environment from road-building and on global warming. So from an environmental point of view, rising fuel prices might just force people to leave their cars at home and take alternative means of transport. Then being 'green' is today as chic and being 'red' was in the past and with about as much effect! That global warming is taking place is undeniable. That we are to blame for this is, despite the rhetoric, still open to some question. Yes I know that's heresy today. That we have been profligate with global resources and have paid little regard to the impact we have on the environment is now taken as read and that we have to do something about it is certain but whether taxing motoring to oblivion is the right way to go about it is another issue.

For me there are three connected issues that need to be addressed. First, the impact that Britain can have on global warming is limited. If we reduced all our carbon emissions to zero, all the effort would be eroded in a matter of a few years by the enormous output of economies such as China and India. We've had our industrial revolution and other countries, with some justification, are right to object when the West tells them to act in a more environmentally responsible way. It is presumptuous, patronising and ultimately pointless. Why should India and China not pull their populations out of poverty as we once did through technological advance. For all the pious words of scientists, global solutions are going to take a long time to develop. Secondly, given that we've known for decades that the oil will run out, why has a viable alternative fuel not been developed by motor manufacturers. I can remember electric cars thirty years ago. Yes the technology is being developed but too slowly. Finally, there's the issue of taxation. Given that motorists are the biggest electoral group in society and given that we all moan about the rising cost of transport, why don't we simply vote out any government that proposes to increase levels of taxation on our cars!

In the last decade there has been a significant reduction in our political liberties and a parallel increase in the power of the state justified under twin assaults from global warming and global terrorism. It is time that this process was reversed or we will simply sleep walk into an authoritarian state over which we have increasing less control. The assault by the state on our lives and the increasingly pervasive and illiberal nature of its actions should be a cause for concern we all feel. As recent events demonstrate, governments will only listen when they are electorally challenged. It's not that we are being ripped off by government, it's that government is ripping away those liberties we have spent generations achieving.

Just Taxes!

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 01:02:48 GMT

Now I'm not one to complain but I'm absolutely sure that I'm not the only person who thinks that we have got to the point where taxes have become unjust. Yes, I know, nobody likes paying taxes...it's one of the few truisms of history and, as Benjamin Franklin rightly surmised one of the three certainties in life. The point about taxation of whatever form is that it must not just be fair but be seen to be fair and the system we have at present simply isn't fair at all. The government's response to any problem is to try and tax it away. Take the gas-guzzlers in London as an example. Yes they're bad for the environment but £25 to drive one in the congestion zone is not simply unfair, it's unjust: a tax that is not simply unfair but deliberately seen to be unfair. Another current example, the suggestion that smokers should have a £10 permit to buy tobacco. Again discriminatory taxation. It appears that when all else fails, the government solution is to tax people so that you get people to conform to what the government wants. If smoking is that bad for you, why not ban it completely...but then cynic as I am the government wouldn't get the revenue it generates. What next, permits to buy junk food!! Better still, why not tax all dog owners!!! We did once require them all to have a licence, why not again.

We have become in the last ten years a far higher taxed society and I don't think that will dramatically change if the opposition gets into power. Whether we like it or not higher taxes are here to stay. Which takes me back to the point about fairness. People get less annoyed when they think that their taxes are being spent properly but what we are faced with today is higher taxes and falling levels of service. Bins are being collected less often; roads being neglected while councils increase the number of speed cameras to generate yet more revenue that they misspend. We spend ridiculous and escalating amounts on the two weeks for the Olympics and yet cannot afford to give pensioners a living and certainly not heating income or soldiers the right equipment to save their lives in combat. The gulf between rich and poor is growing and we do not appear to be doing anything about it.

So what should we do. First, get rid of the increasingly discredited council tax and replace it with a local income tax linked to the services people use (beyond the core services). So if I want to use the community theatre or library, I pay for it. The principle that all who use the services should contribute to them is right. Secondly, introduce a 50p tax level for individuals who earn over £80,000 a year, hardly an oppressive level for those who can clearly afford it. Thirdly, raise the threshold at which people start paying taxes to £10,000; this would remove the poorest from the tax system and provide an incentive for those on benefits to seek work. Fourthly, stop trying to tax problems out of existence and find more creative and cost-effective solutions. Finally, cut the cost of government at all levels so that taxes can be allocated more effectively. We cannot continue with ever rising costs of government. Government does not generate taxation, other than through its own employees, the people do and many people have had enough. They don't think that government is spending the money effectively and feel that that are being screwed by government at all levels that seem to care little for what people aspire to.

Greedy Britain!!

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 10:39:51 GMT

In the past decade the gulf between rich and poor has widened. Proportionally, the poor pay more in taxes than the rich and the super-rich. It appears that we increasingly live in a society where 'to him that hath, shall more be given'. After 'Cool Britannia', we now have 'Greedy Britannia'. Is this a reflection of what the Tories call 'Broken Britain' and are we becoming an obese society in financially as well as physically? The past few months suggest that this is the case especially in the ranks of parliamentarians who establish rules to deal with sleaze and then proceed regularly to ignore them...sorry it was an administrative oversight. The Conway affair is only the tip of the iceberg and I suspect that some MPs are thinking 'there but for the grace of God...'

The issue of MPs' expenses can be easily dealt with by three measures. First, they should not be allowed to employ any member of their family or extended family in their parliamentary or political activities. So no sons, daughters, wives, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, nieces or nephews. Employing people should be by open application and interview. Secondly, their expenses should be audited annually and published and I don't mean a sample of MPs, I mean all. This should also be extended to include members of the House of Lords. Thirdly, any MP or peer found to be corrupt in their parliamentary activities, should be expelled from Parliament. The question of party funding again can be solved relatively easily. I am not in favour of public funding of political parties, perhaps the easiest solution. Put simply, donations to political parties should only come from individual party members and should be limited to £10,000 per year. No donations should be allowed from organisations at all: so nothing from business or the trade unions. This should be backed up by punitive fines on political parties that ignore the rules: any party found in breach of the rules on party funding should be fined £1 million for each offence. This may appear draconian but in the world beyond Westminster, individuals found to be corrupt in their employment would be sacked and probably prosecuted. MPs and peers should be treated precisely the same.

Which brings me to the rich and the super-rich. Taxing them at 40 per cent is obscenely low. I'm not suggesting moving back to the punitive 90 per cent tax rates that existed in the 1960s. However, taxing anyone who earns more than £100,000 a year at 50 per cent and 60 per cent over £250,000 does not seem unreasonable and might do something to reduce the yawning gulf between rich and poor as well as bringing in additional revenue. Combined with raising inheritance tax, this would be politically popular as well as a move towards a financially fairer society. You never now, it might lead to a sleaker and less greedy Britain!

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 11:54:01 GMT

What do you think of chicken and how often do you eat it? Probably once or even twice a week I suspect. Do you think about where your chicken has come from of how it was reared? Probably not. Should you be thinking about this? Well, probably yes but would it actually make any difference to your eating habits? As a society, we want good, cheap food and most people are more concerned about that that where the food actually comes from. It would be nice of all the chickens we ate were free-range and had a good standard of life during their often short existence but if you're trying to feed a family on a low income with little likelihood of any substantial increase in pay and free-range chicken costs more then think again.

Am I the only person who is getting increasingly annoyed by the growing number of foodies on the television telling us what we should and should not eat or environmentalists who pontificate about our (it never seems to be their) carbon footprint? It's all very well for them. They're often very (and I mean very) well-paid for what they do and can afford to live their lives according to their prejudices. They can fly and then offset their carbon footprint by planting trees. If you have a contrast with a supermarket worth over £1 million, then you can live the way you want. That is not an option for most people. I strongly object to being told how I should live my life and that the decisions I make are wrong. Wrong they might be from an ethical point of view, but they are my decisions made within the monetary parameters within which I live. Unlike most of those who pontificate on food matters, I come from a farming background so I'm fully aware of the difficult decisions that have to be made between animal welfare and profitability. It's not that the foodies are wrong, it's just the self-satisfied arrogance in which they put forward their case that offends. So the answer to the question 'why did the chicken cross the road?' is clear. It's to get away from the foodies who think they know best!

Loading the dice or dishing the exams!!

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 10:36:00 GMT

Is the introduction of Diplomas a good idea? Yes, I think so. There is a need to provide a real alternative to the existing GCSE and A Level structure and the Diplomas with their progressive from Foundation to Higher and Advanced/Progression provides a viable alternative to the increasingly discredited existing system. The 'gold standard' looks increasingly beleaguered and somewhat tarnished. This does beg the question of why major reforms for A Level are to be introduced in 2008 if the Diploma is to replace it and that appears to be the clear intention of the government. I have never understood the argument for further reform of A Level anyway. It seems to me that, after a very rocky introduction, the AS-A Level system worked rather well at least it appeared to do so in my subject. Students liked the variety, the option of doing coursework and research assignments and the ability to cover a range of subjects and periods though that appears not to be what most teachers did. The 'Hitlerisation' of the curriculum was well attested in the press. Not, I suspect, that the new courses is going to change that.

But, I do have a problem with how the Diplomas will be judged against existing courses at Advanced Level and this gives further evidence of the government's intentions. How can you have a Diploma that is allocated the same time as three A Levels and then give it a higher tariff of 420 UCAS points split with up to 300 for the "principal and generic learning" components, and 120 more for additional and specialist learning compared to 360 for the A levels. If a Diploma is 'broadly the same as three A Levels', then it should have the same tariff. To do otherwise is seriously loading the dice in favour of Diplomas. In addition, £28m Diploma funding for the first year would mean schools and colleges getting an extra £1,000 or so for each Diploma student they taught. I can't remember an equivalent sum being offered when the new A Levels were introduced.

In late October, Ed Balls stated that 'If Diplomas are successfully introduced and are delivering the mix that employers and universities value, they could be come the qualification of choice for young people. But, because GCSEs and A-levels are long established and valued qualifications, that should not be decided by any pre-emptive government decision but by the demands of young people, schools and colleges.' I would have though that accepting QCA's recommendation about the tariff is the equivalent to a 'pre-emptive government decision'! While there may be a strong case for replacing GCSEs with the Higher Diploma (and given that it is the equivalent of seven grades A*-C many schools mindful of league tables will take it up), the case for all students taking courses that are a mix of theoretical and practical and applied study is less clear. Getting universities to accept them is crucial to their success. However, a survey this summer suggested that fewer than four in ten university admissions officers saw the Diploma as a 'good alternative' to A-levels and the Russell Group of leading universities has expressed reservations. So even if the government loads the dice in favour of Diplomas that does not mean that they will inevitably become acceptable to universities, well at least the leading universities.

If the government thinks Diplomas are such a good thing, then it should be honest about it and abolish A Levels and GCSEs instead of trying to get them accepted by the back door. But then honesty is not a characteristic of this government!

Should we have a referendum on Europe?

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 14:20:40 GMT

Today the European Reform Treaty is signed by the EU leaders in Lisbon. Gordon will sign later today because of a 'prior commitment' in Parliament. The painful passage (or not) of the legislation will take place in Parliament next year, As someone who campaigned for a 'yes' vote in the 1975 referendum and given that we were promised a referendum on any further EU constitutional changes in the Labour manifesto in 2005, I am persuaded by the argument that we ought to have a referendum on this Treaty. Although the Conservatives have been clamouring for one since the defunct EU constitution, I am not making a party political point here but a purely practical one. Most commentators seem to believe that although 'constitution' is missing from the Treaty's name, to all intents and purposes it is a EU constitution albeit with a few bits missed out and having ploughed my way through the EU constitution and the Reform Treaty I'm inclined to agree with them. If that is the case, we were promised a referendum and we should have one.

The problem is that referendums often turn out not to be a vote on the specific proposal but a judgement on the government of the day. That was certainly the case with the French referendum. It's yet another way of hitting an unpopular government and is probably the main reason why Gordon has set his face against the whole thing. The difficulty he faces is that no one actually believes that the Treaty is simply a tidying up operation and, with some justification, accuse the government of weasel words. Despite this, there remains a strong case for a referendum on this issue just as there was for the Maastricht Treaty two decades ago. The danger is that the people will simply have the Treaty imposed on them and the government will then find it difficult to maintain its much vaunted 'red lines'. I have no truck with those who say that we should exit the EU and believe that, on balance, our membership has been beneficial to the country and would certainly campaign in favour of the Treaty. However, for many people that is not their view and anti-EU views are hardened by the intransigence of government on the issue of a referendum. Harold Wilson got it right in 1975 when he allowed MPs to campaign and vote on a non-party basis and he recognised that attitudes towards the EU, for and against, were cross-party in character. The sovereignty of Parliament is grounded in the sovereignty of the people, something that successive governments find convenient to ignore. It is not enough for government to say it knows best...people have their own views and should have the opportunity to express them.

I understand why the government is frightened of a referendum; it thinks it would lose and given its attitude to the people that may be right. That should not preclude the people having a vote on the issue. It's up to those of us who favour the Treaty to go out and sell it to people, to make the case for the EU and robustly answer those for whom the EU is a betrayal of our constitutional sovereignty. Unlike the government, I think that we could win a referendum once the myths, falsehoods and misrepresentations of those opposed to the Treaty are exposed. Fear of failure is an excuse for weak government. So Gordon, call a referendum and allow those in Parliament opposed to the Treaty of whatever party to campaign against it so that those of us in favour of the EU, instead of hiding in the thickets can get out and campaign in favour. You have little to lose and a great deal to gain!

Getting away

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 21:32:06 GMT

For the next ten days, I'll be cruising to and from the Canaries in search of autumn sun and warmth. It's a good time to get away: the half term break is almost over so the number of children should be limited (having taught for many a year, it really is a luxury not to have to get away during school breaks) and it gives me time to do a bit of reading. As I've just finished the fourth chapter of my book on the Canadians rebellions of 1837-8, the Newport Rising and Eureka Stockade in Australia in 1854, it's also a good time to take stock of what I've already completed and what still needs to be done to complete this rapidly growing work. I've always found it useful when I'm working on a book or article to get away for a few days...it puts everything into perspective and acts as an important boost to writing when I return.

Plastic bags, paper bags and compulsion

Sat, 20 Oct 2007 10:42:14 GMT

A city is reportedly set to become the first in Britain to ban stores from handing out plastic bags. Shoppers in Brighton, East Sussex, will instead be encouraged to use eco-friendly reusable bags after councillors ordered retailers not to hand out plastic bags. The authority reportedly voted unanimously to pass an outright ban. Members also agreed to lobby the Government, the city's three MPs and the Local Government Association for a ban on the bags. Tory councillor Maria Caulfield, who put forward the motion, told local newspaper The Argus: 'This sends a clear message to consumers and retailers that plastic bags are not good for the environment.' Annually, an estimated 17.5 billion plastics bags are given away nationally by supermarkets - enough to cover the combined area of London, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and West Yorkshire. About 3.5 million bags a year are distributed in Brighton and Hove alone. Each bag can take anything between 400 and 1,000 years to break down and rot away. In Britain, at least 200 million bags end up as waste on beaches, streets and parks every year but Defra said the Government had no plans to introduce a tax on plastic bags at present.

How laudable, you may say...a council with the bottle to make a real decision about changing the environment. I agree but with one caveat. Yet again, the solution to a problem is to be resolved by banning something. This now appears to be the norm for government at virtually every level. Whether it's smoking or obesity or travel or, well just about anything else, government's first response appears to be to ban it. If we don't like it of course we can vote the offending politicians out at the next election but that misses the point. We appear to be drifting into an authoritarian system of government where compulsion, whether presumed or not, is becoming the norm. The problem is that these decisions can be based on specious science. Take the level of alcohol that is 'safe'. It appears that the number of units people should drink was plucked out of the air rather than being based on sound scientific judgements. If you look at the estimated number of plastic bags given away nationally and then divide it by the total population of the UK you come up with a figure of 2916 bags being given away to every person in the country by supermarkets each year or 8 bags a day and then presumably there are plastic bags not handed out by supermarkets. So where do these figures come from? Or have they just be plucked out of the air?

Now there is a case for compulsion in society but only where there is either a direct threat to individuals within the community from actions that have a deleterious impact on others or where persuasion to change behaviour has been unsuccessful. In other areas, individuals should be able to make up their own minds unemcumbered and not penalised by the local and national state. To paraphrase Dunning's proposal: 'the role of the state has increased, is increasing and ought to be diminished'.

Opting in, opting out and 'presumed consent'

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 09:13:11 GMT

Let me say from the outset that I am fully in favour of organ donation. The ability of medicine to reuse organs and as a result either save people's lives or give them a heightened quality of life is one of the major successes of medical science in the last fifty years. Let me also say that I am fully aware of the heartbreak caused by te death of a young person simply because there are no organs available having lost two close relatives in this way. We should all be prepared to donate our organs on death unless we have good reasons not to. It is our way of giving something to others who often deperately need what we no longer have a use for.

The critical dimension of this is that it is our donation, our gift to others. However, the increasing view of public opinion is that there should be an opt-out system of organ donation. It appears that there will be the assumption of 'presumed consent' unless you specify otherwise. This concerns me greatly. Although the BMA says that 'there will never be a compulsion to donate' and I have no personal objections to donation, it is this notion of presumed consent that concerns me because it could well be the thin edge of the wedge. At present organs can only be taken from people who have actively chosen to be donors, and carry donor cards. Results from a British Medical Association survey showed that 64% of those taking part thought Britain should adopt the new system. Just over a quarter of the more than 2,000 people surveyed in England, Scotland and Wales, said they were on the NHS Organ Donor Register. However, 62% told investigators they would be willing to donate their organs for transplantation after death, in which case why aren't they actually on the Organ Donor Register? If they were, there would be no need for an opt out system.

Perhaps I'm being cynical but I strongly believe that the state has too much power and interfers in what should be our lifestyle decisions and that, whatever those in favour of this proposed system say, presumed consent will be a decision made by the state and if it can apply the concept to organ donation then there is no logical reason why it could not be applied say to euthansia or other less platable or popular issues. Yes you can demand that your organs are not used but what if you can no longer make that choice? Will it be presumed that you are willing to have your organs used? Or will your relatives have the right to make that choice for you? I am certain there will be the usual legislative safeguards but whether they will be sufficient is a debatable point. An individual's body is their own and, whether in life or death, we should have control over our bodies and the state should not presume to tell us what we should or should not do with them.

Opting in, opting out and 'presumed consent'

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 09:10:50 GMT

The end of the 'Labour project'?

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 11:00:35 GMT

There is little doubt that the last fortnight has seen a major change in people's perceptions of the Labour government and Gordon Brown. Two weeks ago, his visit to Iraq was perceived less as a morale-boosting exercise but as the preliminary to the calling of a general election and, whether he accepts this or not, that is how most people viewed it. Announcing that a thousand troops would be withdrawn by Christmas but to then find out that this included the withdrawal of five hundred troops that had already been announced was seen as 'spin' in the extreme. Matters got worse when he dithered about whether to call and general election or not. In the absence of fixed term parliaments, it is his decision but it would be well if he recognised that the electorate is not stupid. To be told that the polls had nothing to do with his belated announcement that there would not be a general election, probably not until 2009, beggars belief. No one, and I mean absolutely no-one believed him. From being seen as a safe pair of hands during the terrorist outrage in Glasgow, the floods and foot-and-mouth, Gordon is now seen as flawed and, I suspect, fatally.

There are two areas where he is especially vulnerable. First, there is the question of the European Treaty. Despite the so-called (and seemingly very imprecise) 'red lines', there is a widespread perception that the Labour government has gone back on its manifesto commitment to have a referendum on the European Constitution. The argument that the treaty is not the constitution may be linguistically correct but given that most of what was in the rejected constitution is now in the treaty means that the decision not to have a referendum appears to be weasel words. Again, it's a case of treaty the electorate as idiots. Having ploughed through both the constitution and the treaty, in my judgement well over ninety-five percent of what was in the former is now in the treaty. This makes the treaty a critical constitutional document that is sufficiently open-ended to make any opt-outs that Blair negotiated highly tentative. To argue that Margaret Thatcher did not have a referendum over Maastricht in 1986 and John Major in the following decade and so we don't need a referendum now misses the point. The people, or at least a considerable proportion of them actually want a referendum on the issue of future European developments and I would have hoped that the government would have learned from the Iraq fiasco where the people, in their opposition to the war, actually got it right. As someone who campaigned for a yes vote in 1975 and who would probably vote yes again, I think it is time that the people were given the opportunity to express their view on the European Union and that all subsequent treaties should, as in Ireland, be subject to approval by referendum.

Secondly, as perhaps more importantly, there is the issue of taxation. The Conservatives certainly wrong-footed the government over its inheritance tax proposals but the popularity of these proposals represented more than simply public approval for change in an increasingly unpopular tax. In the last ten years, people have seen an increasingly large part of their earnings taken in direct taxation or through the so-called 'stealth taxes' and many have had enough. People are generally happy to pay taxes if they see the benefits of their investment and, in recent years that has simply not been the case. We pay more council tax and yet rubbish collections are being reduced. We pay more in national insurance contributions and yet there has been little tangible improvement in national health services or pensions. We pay enormous levels of tax on petrol and public transport is still overcrowded, unpunctual and slow; roads are overcrowded and infrastructure under-capitalised. Public utility services (now largely privatised anyway) take an increasing chunk of what we earn. People had had enough and unless the government recognises this and more importantly does something about it by reducing the level of personal taxation (and I don't mean getting rid of the 10p band) then it will lose in 2008 or 2009 or 2010 when it eventually has the guts to call an election. What's wrong, for example, with a 50p in the pound tax on those earning over £100,000 a year? Or income tax at 15p in the pound? Or taxing all foreign lorries on British roads? People feel, quite rightly, that they should keep a greater proportion of what they labour for or does the government still believe that it should be labour that keeps a greater proportion of what we earn?

A Motto for Britain!

Fri, 21 Sep 2007 18:40:43 GMT

America has its 'In God we Trust' and Belgium 'Strength in Unity', but the United Kingdom doesn't have a constitutional mission statement. Well not yet! It seems that Gordon and the other politicians of New Labour think that we should. Now the cynic might think that this is another ploy to raise the profile of the United Kingdom as it faces the onslaught from nationalists in Wales and Scotland who would like to see the United Kingdom broken down into its constituent parts or at least greater independence within the union. In an increasingly multi-ethnic Britain in which immigration appears not perhaps to have got out of control (though some would say it has) but has not been especially well managed, some motto that exudes the defining character of the country is perhaps justifiable. However, this would preclude the use of Christianity as part of the motto and yet, whether we like it or not, the United Kingdom is at least tacitly a Christian country and so it is part of the way in which many of use define ourselves. Freedom could also be seen as a defining feature of the country but then our freedoms have been assiduously reduced in the last decade as a consequence (well at least this is the justification always trotted out) of global terrorism. Perhaps surveillance would be now better seen as a characteristic of our society! Then there's our political system, once the pride of the world but perhaps no longer. More presidential than the United States, as sleaze-ridden as, what one judge called banana republics and still replete with 'spin'...well that gives us at least one motto: ' Surveillance, sleaze and spin'. And, of course we can always add a fourth 's' as in 'screw the people'!

The critical question is whether we need it at all. Do we need a corporate logo? Let's hope it isn't designed by the people responsible for the appalling (or should I say appealing) Olympic logo. Before we have a motto, we have to be clear what it means to be 'British' and the difficulty here is that increasingly people in the United Kingdom do not see themselves as British but as English or Welsh or Scottish or Northern Irish or simply Irish. In which case perhaps the Olympic logo with its disconnected parts within an overall whole is the right idea! The difficulty is that people won't see themselves as British by a top-down initiative however worthy. Nationality is defined by how the people view themselves not how politicians view the people...it is the ultimate expression of personal democracy.

Am I bovvered!

Tue, 04 Sep 2007 09:19:07 GMT

There has been a great deal in the papers this year about youth culture and the problems it appears to pose for our society. Often this is linked to gang-related violence and the prevelance of knives and guns among the young as a symbol of status and power. The blame, it appears lies with bad parenting, social and economic deprivation and lack of respect for authority. Rarely, it seems to me, is blame attached to the individuals involved. This is hardly surprising because the whole issue hinges on the question of responsibility. We have become a society where nobody from top to bottom appears to accept any responsibility at all for their actions. It is hardly surprising that young people, who see adults not accepting responsibility or acting responsibly, should seek to emulate them. What about the parent or parents who live in poor conditions who bring up their children successfully? It's always struck me that just because you live in poor economic and social conditions, it does not follow that your children will fail to achieve or that they do not create an environment in which theirt children can succeed. Blaming bad parenting or social and economic conditions seems to be a very convenient excuse when, in reality, it's all about responsibility.

People really do learn by example and that means that those with power must not simply act responsibily but be seen to act responsibly. That means they need to listen more often to what people say...not simply in the 'people's juries' but what the public say. Certainly, there are often occasions when public opinion gets it wrong and just because most people think that something should done, that does not make it right. Establishing a dialogue, explaining why and accepting responsibility for the results of actions is essential rather than the one-sided 'dialogue of the deaf' that we currently have. Take the question of the new European Treaty. Most commentators and those of us who have ploughed through the defunct European Constitution and the European Treaty that contains most of the Constitution think that the manifesto pledge for a referendum should be honoured. The weasel words used by government...well we have got the opt-out....it's a treaty not a constitution and in 1986 Margaret Thatcher didn't have a referendum on Maastricht...show how far the government has to go to accept responsibility for its own actions. Is it any wonder that young people look at politicians with contempt. The same can be said about those leaders of business who get enormous, almost obscene pay rises while restricting those of their workers to below-inflation levels....again where is the responsibility? Although business leaders do resign when they get things wrong, it's hard top remember the last time any politician resigned for the same reason...you can always blame your officials or say that the problem was operational not a question of policy!

To restore faith in our society and marginalise those youths in society who are unwilling to accept responsibility for their actions, there needs to be a substantial change in the way in which we all act responsibly and also accept responsibility. It is not enough to make excuses and winge on about deprivation and parenting.

GCSEs and the usual stink!

Sat, 25 Aug 2007 09:05:27 GMT

GCSEs have improved, yet again. So it's very clear that standards have fallen. I can't see why every year we have the ritual of this person or that appearing on the television castigating the examination system for producing better results. I think we must be the only country in the world that beats itself up every year over what we should be celebrating as a major success. Yes, there are fewer students studying Modern Languages, at least French and German but rather more taking languages such as Polish (as consequence of immigration in the EU perhaps), Chinese and Japanese. We do have a deplorable record in studying Modern Languages...what a difference the twenty-two miles between Dover and Calais makes! Making them optional at Key Stage 4 was always going to result in falling numbers..even the idiots in the educational department in London must have recognised that. Is it surprising that schools, beset by league tables, 'persuade' their students to take GNVQs that are equivalent to five GCSEs than compel them to take more difficult options.

Instead of this annual period of collective angst around GCSEs and A Levels, perhaps it would be better if we were asking whether the examination system is 'fit for purpose'? Whether it provides the skills and knowledge needed for the emerging global society of the twenty-first century? What is clear is that while many students are successful in the examinations, there are huge numbers of people who are not. They leave school without even the basics in English and Maths, without any understanding of their role in their communities (however construed). They are educationally disfranchised from the start and it is little wonder that they become socially and politically disfranchised as well. They are today's 'underclass' not necessarily economically because many can earn good wages in the 'black' and legitimate economies but culturally because they have little or not connection to a society that, they may feel, provides them with little of worth. So for them the whole educational system provides them with little of value.

We have always had an educational system in which there has been built-in failure. Whether payment by results in the nineteenth century or league tables today, there have always been a proportion of young people who fail and they fail even earlier now with Key Stage 1 and 2 tests. Is it any wonder that many turn away from society towards the attractive belonging of gang culture that provides a welcoming home for those society has deemed to have failed. This provides a status that the educational system clearly do not provide. In a perverse way, it provides a sense of self-worth and 'dignity' that schools fail to provide despite all their efforts. Yes, we should welcome the success of those students who have done well in the public examinations but we must also recognise the wasted potential of those who, for whatever reason, feel that schools have nothing to offer them.

It's that time of year again!

Tue, 14 Aug 2007 11:16:41 GMT

Advanced Level results are imminent; schools will get the results tomorrow and tear-soaked students the following day. So I'd expect a whole range of individuals and organisations to start talking about how A Levels have been 'dumbed down' and because the results are likely to be good that they're easier than they used to be. This will be combined with a rending of cloth when the numbers taking Sciences and Mathematics have, for another year, fallen. I sometimes wonder why students bother at all. Instead of them being praised for doing well, they are told they're doing the 'easy' options or not taking the subjects necessary for a vibrant expansive economy.

For the first time in decades I have no personal interest in the results. Of course, I expect my ex-students to do well but I won't have to trudge into school to prepare the press release or justify to not too pleased parents why students got C grades rather than Bs. I won't have to advise students who have just been through two years of intense pressure about going through clearing or phoning universities to persuade faceless bureacrats why they should take someone despite their lower than expected results. But then, there's the intense joy of students who have acvhieved what they need to progress to higher education or employment. And it has always been that way except that, unlike two decades ago, there are now so many more students taking A Levels and going on to university.

Trying to persuade parents that this might not be the best route for their offspring is generally like a dialogue of the deaf. It's what many parents now expect. Having a good education is important, though I increasingly doubt whether this is what most students get in schools. The emphasis is on the word 'education', the development of a love of learning for its own sake not just as a means of achieving high grades. This has all but gone in most schools. What matters is results. The mantra should have been 'results, results, results' not 'education, education, education'. There's nothing wrong with good results and that can mean a student getting a F grade at GCSE but surely there has to be more to education than this?

Flooding, house insurance and housing policy

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 09:00:01 GMT

Well we all knew it was coming after the floods.....house insurance is to rise by 10 per cent in some cases from next Monday. You take out insuance to protect you against unfortunate and often unplesant experiences hoping that you never have to use it. Year after year, insurance companies are happy to take your money. Then, when something does go wrong, who actually pays? I always thought it was the insurance companies but no, the obvious answer is we all do. Whether you were affected or not, the insurance companies recoup their losses from everyone. I may be naive but that seems rather unfair to me. Why shouldn't the government pick up the bill for disasters or the magnitude of the recent floods....but then, of course we'd still all pay through our taxation! So either way, it's the public not the institutions that bare the brunt of disasters.

We're told today by Yvette Cooper not to 'play politics' with housing since it is inevitable that some new housing will have to be built on flood plains. She may be right but if this has to be the case then we need some innovative solutions to house building since failure to do so will mean yet more soggy lives for people in the future. What about raising houses above possible flooding on stilts so that the living areas are no longer at risk. In the Fens, you find some of the older houses with the front doors several feet above the ground to reduce the threat of flooding. It should be perfectly possible to build houses with garages and utility rooms at ground level with other living spaces further up. This, combined with enhanced flood protection, might reduce the human costs of flooding and well as providing an innovative approach to house building. In the past, communities have always been built on flood plains if only to provide effective communication as well as access to drinking water and fish and, of course, the act of flooding often provided enrichment to soils for arable farming or lush grazing. The problem with concreting over land is that it reducing the ability of soil to soak water away, something highlighted last week in the reduction of gardens.

To return to house insurance. Although, there are already variable amounts paid based on post-code linked, for example, to levels of crime and danger of flooding in the same way that if you have a more powerful car then you pay a higher premium for car insurance. But you do get 'no claims discount'. As far as I can see, this is generally not part of the home insurance package....and it should be. It can't be that complicated...there are more cars than houses and it works for them!!

Talking about One Year On!

Sat, 28 Jul 2007 17:53:27 GMT

Quote

One Year On!

It's a year to the day since I retired from teaching. Thirty-four years in front of countless students teaching them History and latterly Citizenship as well. Did I enjoy it? Well, surprisingly given the press coverage of the number of teachers wanting to leave the profession, yes...every day. Do I miss it? I expected to as I always enjoyed it so much, but no. The transition from working to retirement can be difficult but I am enjoying retirement so much and have so many things to do (now when I want to do them) that being in front of a class seems a lifetime away. Certainly I miss talking with my fellow teachers, the debate on educational issues and even some of the students but I don't miss the job. As a friend said to me at her retirement party last week 'we've had our time' and I think I agree. Not that teaching has changed, it's still about getting students interested in your subject and through that developing their ability to learn (about themselves, their lives, priorities and choices as well as the subject itself). Not that league tables and regular inspections have restricted my ability to educate students as well as teaching what they need to get through. Not even the increasingly pointless dictats from central government about how to teach. It's just that being a teacher used to be a vocation, a way of making things better for generations of students and now it's a profession, a job just like everything else. This must sound as if I'm opposed to change...far from it. What we need is not the tinkering of cosmetic change and the bleatings of successive Education Secretaries about this week's initiative or that but radical change.

So why start a blog now? I've been thinking about it for long enough and thought it was time I 'bit the bullet'! The focus will be on History though I expect I'll comment on current affairs as well...there's some much to comment on! It will also give me a platform for developing ideas about History and especially my particular interests (Chartism and the Normans) and extend the materials contained on my website: http://uk.geocities.com/richardjohnbr@btopenworld.com/

So I hope you find it useful!

Floods and Trains

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 09:38:38 GMT

The last time I travelled to London by train it was a far from pleasant experience: I had to stand all the way, the carriage was dirty and the journey was delayed by railworks. What should have taken forty minutes took well over an hour and, of course, the train was late in the first place. The return journey was little better. Yesterday, the government announced its plans for the rail network for the next decades. All well and good but who will have to pay....the passengers of course. In our market-oriented economy that should have come as no surprise to anyone. But what's the alternative...presumably the car or other forms of public transport (or should we now be saying private transport as it's clearly no longer owned by 'the public'). Now the double whammy! Rail fares will go up at above inflation for the forseeable future but if car pricing is introduced nationwide (still a major possibility) then drivers will soon be priced off the road. In fact, in the decade I can see driving a car as being almost as unacceptable as smoking! I probably have travelled more by train on the continent in the last few years and there the prices are reasonable, the service generally efficient and safe and the trains modern. If France and Germany can have a cheap rail network, I've often wondered why Britain can't subsidise fares (now that would really get people out of their cars).

The floods justifibly have taken up columns of newsprint and hours of television in the past few weeks though interestingly it didn't take the media as long to latch on to the problems in Gloucester as those in Hull. Is it all to do with global warming? Scientists and other 'experts' appears to be putting the blame on that benighted phenomenon; in fact, any weather than appears not to be the 'norm' is trumpeted as further evidence of the coming cataclysm. But there have always been floods during the summer and it should always be remembered that, despite the hot summers of recent years, that Britain is a wet place. In my my grandmother's family bible, there are dates of important events and under 1912 for August the oninmous 'in this month the fens drowned', then there was the 'year with no summer' in 1815 (its cause a cataclysmic volcanic eruption in Asia) and there were a series of bad summers in the 1840s, 1910s and 1950s. And all this long before cheap air-flights, a depleted ozone layer and carbon footprints. Flooding in the summer is not as unusual as some people are making out though that's small comfort if your house has been flooded and your possessions destroyed. What is perhaps more worrying is that the flooding of one water treatment work or one electricity sub-station has such devastating consequences.

The vital point about both rail and flood is that they raise fundamental questions about our decaying infrastructure. Whether it's water treatment or sewers or electricity or railways, it appears that they are now approaching saturation point (if you excuse the pun) after decades of neglect. We appear to be very good at tinkering with things to keep them going but are less well disposed to making and paying for the improvements that are essential if the whole system is not inexorably to break down. But then, they're not 'sexy': you don't think about sewers until they break down or water until you don't get it through your taps. You just expect them to be there. Perhaps it is time we stopped playing such a global role and embarking on foreign 'adventures' of dubious legality and focussed our attention rather more on improving the quality of life for our own citizens.

History in the Balance

Fri, 20 Jul 2007 11:14:57 GMT

The publication of the Ofsted report on history teaching and learning provides an excellent summary of the state of history teaching in schools today. The report evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of history in primary and secondary schools. It does so at a time of changing contexts and lively debate on the future of the subject. The Every Child Matters agenda to maximise pupils' potential raises significant questions about what is taught and how. There is also much public and political interest in issues of citizenship, the understanding of British values and social cohesion. In reflecting on evidence from inspection, the report considers how history teaching might respond to these challenges.

The critical question is where is history in schools actually going? Concerns that it is being squeezed in primary schools are nothing new but there seems to be a growing trend to condense Key Stage 3 into two years. History should be savoured not force-fed! There also seems to be a revival in the issue of the relevance of the subject to the world today. If that means providing a historical context for things that are going on now, then that's not a problem and is something history teachers have been doing for centuries. If, on the other hand, it means joining the 'political correctness brigade' and accepting all the ideas expressed by that benighted corp, then that flies in the face of history as a critical consideration of past and, by extension current events. Take, for example, global warming. Should historians be considering it in their lessons? Certainly. Should we be looking critically at the science and whether global waarming is a result of our actions or merely a change in weather patterns similar to others that have occurred over time? Definately. While scientists may be right about the causes of global warming, there are individuals who disagree and, as history teachers we should be examining this. We should be doing what all good history teachers do: consider the evidence critically before coming to a conclusion and recognise that conclusions in history are, by their very nature, tentative.

One Year On!

Wed, 18 Jul 2007 11:36:28 GMT

It's a year to the day since I retired from teaching. Thirty-four years in front of countless students teaching them History and latterly Citizenship as well. Did I enjoy it? Well, surprisingly given the press coverage of the number of teachers wanting to leave the profession, yes...every day. Do I miss it? I expected to as I always enjoyed it so much, but no. The transition from working to retirement can be difficult but I am enjoying retirement so much and have so many things to do (now when I want to do them) that being in front of a class seems a lifetime away. Certainly I miss talking with my fellow teachers, the debate on educational issues and even some of the students but I don't miss the job. As a friend said to me at her retirement party last week 'we've had our time' and I think I agree. Not that teaching has changed, it's still about getting students interested in your subject and through that developing their ability to learn (about themselves, their lives, priorities and choices as well as the subject itself). Not that league tables and regular inspections have restricted my ability to educate students as well as teaching what they need to get through. Not even the increasingly pointless dictats from central government about how to teach. It's just that being a teacher used to be a vocation, a way of making things better for generations of students and now it's a profession, a job just like everything else. This must sound as if I'm opposed to change...far from it. What we need is not the tinkering of cosmetic change and the bleatings of successive Education Secretaries about this week's initiative or that but radical change.

So why start a blog now? I've been thinking about it for long enough and thought it was time I 'bit the bullet'! The focus will be on History though I expect I'll comment on current affairs as well...there's some much to comment on! It will also give me a platform for developing ideas about History and especially my particular interests (Chartism and the Normans) and extend the materials contained on my website: http://uk.geocities.com/richardjohnbr@btopenworld.com/

So I hope you find it useful!