One solution to BBC`s gender pay gap problem

As no-one in their right mind can possibly think co-presenting a radio programme on the publicly-owned BBC for three mornings a week to be worth anything like £600,000 a year, there is an obvious, if still over-generous, solution (Montague in talks with BBC over job swap at Radio 4, 02/11/17). A start to solving the "gender pay gap row at the corporation" can be achieved by offering all of the Today programme`s presenters a new £200,000 a year contract. Those who refuse to tear up their old ones need to be asked to justify their action, live on air, and preferably by Ms Montague!

 With one of the key roles of the programme`s presenters being to challenge policies, it is absurd in the current climate, and with the present government imposing a pay freeze on all other public sector workers, to have the work done by people earning well over twenty-four times the national average.

Since when has experience been necessary?

Mary Dejevsky`s support for the appointment of Gavin Williamson as Fallon`s replacement as Defence Secretary is valid in many ways, certainly in view of the unlikelihood that he will have "the sort of skeletons in his closet that cost Sir Michael his job" (The real reason Theresa May had to appoint Gavin Williamson, 02/11/17). Even if he has, few MPs will run the risk of exposing them. Strangely, Dejevsky omitted to question whether Fallon`s sexual misbehaviour should disqualify him from holding a knighthood as well as a post in the Cabinet.

   She does, however, suggest that May is unlikely to be worried by Williamson`s inexperience making him unsuitable "to fill one of the great offices of state". When have inexperience and unsuitability ever precluded Tory MPs from holding office? Doesn`t the fact that most of the recent Cabinet members have been millionaires, totally out of touch with the people of this country, privately educated with a skewed view of history, and with little concern for the wellbeing of the least fortunate, make them all unsuitable and lacking the necessary experience to govern us? Even Chancellors of the exchequer don`t need to have economics degrees as Osborne showed us!

    Even where Dejevsky sees some suitability, as with Davis taking over Defence because of his time with the SAS, or Rory Stewart`s job at the Dept for International Development making him a likely Foreign Secretary, there is massive cause for concern. Ex-army people in charge of Defence? Really? Stewart recently maintained that all returning jihadists should be killed, a view which is so contrary to the rule of law it should ensure his political future is over. 

  For once, May has made a sensible decision. Her next should be to ban all Tory MPs from drinking in the vast number of subsidised Westminster bars, and threaten to hand over to the media all MPs` monthly bar accounts.

 

 

University welfare strategies

With the number of first-year students "who disclose a mental health problem" having risen fivefold nationally, and suicide rates rising in parallel with the increasing economic and academic pressure on students, Nottingham Trent University`s wellbeing policies should be applauded (Campus confidential, 28.10.17). All universities should be instructed to provide details in prospectuses of their student welfare strategies, perhaps on the same page as where their vice-chancellors` salaries are disclosed.

UK`s economic problems not only caused by Brexit

George Eaton`s otherwise excellent appraisal of the damage being done to the UK`s economy by Brexit failed to be sufficiently critical of coalition and successive Tory governments` policies (The new sick man of Europe, 27th October, 2017). Are we really expected to believe that, without Brexit, this Tory government would be delivering "transformative economic policy"? There is absolutely no evidence to support this; an apparently "new industrial strategy" as well as policies on corporate governance were watered down to the ineffective measures they now are by right wingers in the cabinet, lobbyists outside it, and a general Tory fear of upsetting party donors.

      Eaton was right to stress how the UK is "too unbalanced, too unproductive, and too unequal", but he fails to mention the role played by recent Tory governments in creating this situation. Tax cuts for the rich, lack of investment in infrastructure outside the south-east, and a minimum wage which is both too low, and too lightly enforced, are only three of the factors causing economic problems, long before the Brexit vote. With British businesses dominated by short-termism, with pay for managers and CEOs determined by annual profit levels, leading to a tendency to rely on cheap labour rather than investment in new technology and training, and low productivity the inevitable result, a government willing to legislate to enforce change is needed. 

       At least, last week`s Leader column appeared to suggest that the intensification of "strife and stress" faced by low earners, caused by the government`s callous Universal Credit system, proves May`s pledges about the "just managing" were nothing more than rhetoric (A universal failure, 27th October, 2017). Now is surely the time to support the policies of Corbyn and McDonnell.

Independent: letter on history`s manipulation

Hasnet Lais`s excellent article on the way the national curriculum prevents history teachers from teaching "the brutal legacy of empire" provides yet another piece of evidence to illustrate the way British history is still being manipulated (As a history teacher, I`m horrified by the whitewashing of my curriculum, 30/10/17). It was bad enough when Michael Gove was insisting on factual history taking precedence over analysis and evaluation, but when the facts to be taught are prescriptive, and when essential events are omitted, the history learned is bound to be inaccurate and misleading.

   This is not a new phenomenon, and the Brexit vote was, in part, the result of a distorted view of our history, seemingly desirous of our so-called "glorious past", when wars were won by "Britain alone", when empires were gained to "civilise", when atrocities were only committed by enemies or "barbarians", and when the economy boomed without the need for European co-operation or labour.

    Of course history involves, as Lais reminded us, a "dispassionate and authentic inquiry into the past", but unlike other countries like Germany which insist on facing up to their past and refusing to mislead students with "colonial amnesia", however uncomfortable, Britain does the opposite. Court cases such as those on behalf of 44,000 Kenyans claiming compensation for the brutal tactics employed by the British crushing the Mau Mau rebellion in the 1950s, get scant coverage in the press; had any other country used beatings, torture, rape, forced labour, castration and roasting alive as methods to suppress popular uprisings, it would be headline news.

      In fact, the thirty year rule has been ignored so often by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, that there now exists an archive containing 1.2 million files, going back to the end of the Crimean War, hidden from the prying eyes of historians, and, of course, from barristers aiming to get justice for their clients. 

   Two things are essential: first, the release of the "secret" files, and second, an admission that our history has been manipulated for years, and that a re-write is required.

 

Observer letter on Oxbridge

Priya Gopal`s arguments for the need both for a conversation about "wider deprivation and systemic inequality", and the existence of a "two-tiered education structure" merely deflect away from the unassailable truth about Oxbridge`s appalling "admissions processes" (Oxbridge bashing is an empty ritual if we ignore wider social inequities, 22.10.17). She sounds too much like the Oxford apologist who, when the figures were released to David Lammy, claimed that rectifying the problem was "a long journey", needing a "huge, joined-up effort across society".             
   Such propagandist nonsense is echoed sadly by Gopal blaming the existence of private schools for Oxbridge`s bias towards them! Her article raises many questions, but answers none of them. Why, when the national figure for attendance at private schools is 7%, do Oxbridge colleges insist on recruiting over 40% from the independent sector, especially when research at Cardiff and Oxford Brookes universities proved students from state schools gain better degrees than independently-educated candidates with the same A-level grades. Similarly, has not the integrity of the Pre-University examinations taken instead of A-levels by many private school pupils, and set and marked by teachers in the private sector, been questioned by recent scandals at Eton and Winchester?

   Is it any wonder that few high-attaining black or working class students are attracted to apply to Oxford or Cambridge, when both universities do so little to disprove the perceived myths which surround them? 

     Do Oxbridge interviews give all candidates a chance to show off their  understanding, or are the questions designed more to flummox all but the most confident? Will the majority of candidates from modest backgrounds face humiliation and embarrassment, if not at the interview, in the colleges afterwards, with the formal dinners, the expensive balls and clubs? Teachers concerned about their pupils` welfare, should not be blamed for directing most bright students elsewhere!

Oxbridge interviews need to change

So much gets written about Oxbridge interviews along the lines of Alex Preston`s article last week, how they "are not about catching our applicants", but about "getting candidates to think", one is drawn to conclude they "protest too much, methinks" (Solving the riddle of getting into Oxford, 15.10.17). These interviews, apparently, are designed to show "the first flickerings of critical thought", which is really worrying, as it arrogantly suggests sixth form teachers demand no such thing. If tutors fear they might be "bored" in tutorials, some internal reforms might be necessary!

      Preston even resorts to quoting from an Oxford professor`s book, which claims candidates need only "stay calm", and "use the one thing that will get you into Oxford, your brain"! For around 60% of Oxford`s undergraduates, their brains were accompanied by considerable wealth, giving them the access to private education, and the ensuing confidence. Putting sixth-formers through what is clearly a terrifying ideal for most of them can only damage the self-esteem of the hundreds every year who are rejected.So much for concern for pupils` mental health issues!

     If this is a time "when Oxford is seeking to be more inclusive", they should start with ensuring interview questions give the opportunity to all candidates to show off their knowledge and intelligence, rather than confuse and surprise them.  Do the tutors not believe the research findings at Cardiff and Oxford Brookes Universities, which revealed students from state schools gained better degrees than independently-educated candidates with the same A-level grades? The sooner a Labour government insists all universities take a maximum of 7% of their undergraduates from the private sector, in line with national figures, the better.

  Recent cheating scandals at Eton and Winchester "outed" the Pre-University examinations, taken at most private schools in place of the usual A-levels; it seems these examinations are often both written and marked by teachers in the private sector. On the Pre-U website, Winchester College recommends these examinations, as they are "very liberating for teachers"! How many "unliberated" A-level teachers in state schools know that their pupils are competing for places at university with students whose grades have been achieved differently? As if the playing field wasn`t sufficiently uneven!