Wednesday 31 July 2019

Education at Eton: an i letter

Eton, as Robert Verkaik tells us, is advertising for parents to send their sons there, as long as they have "vigour, talent and industry" (Eton mess: how the school perpetuates inequality, 29/07/19). The most expensive school in the country will then give them the necessary support so that they will be "prepared for ...the country`s top universities". This is wrong on so many accounts!
       Judging by the attitudes shown by the Etonian politicians we know, the school develops values which lead to selfishness, unwarranted feelings of superiority and downright snobbery, based simply on the possession of wealth. Many Etonians get into university by taking exams other than A-levels which are set and marked mostly by teachers in the private sector, and by being prepared relentlessly for rather pointless university interviews. Why Oxbridge continues with interviews, when they clearly play an important role in dissuading "ordinary" pupils, beggars belief. Why not interview them after three years of university education, rather than eighteen years of deprivation?
        Until the Oxbridge colleges and other universities concentrate more on recruiting talented pupils from the underfunded state schools rather than the most expensive independent schools, which are clearly "playing" the exam system, the country`s inequalities will continue to increase!

Monday 29 July 2019

Future of History?

With the number "doing history degrees falling 10% over the last decade", and English, Classics and Modern Language degrees not "serving students well in the contemporary job market", Will Hutton has grounds for being worried about our society "withering" (Turning our back on history studies fits with a society that`s losing its common purpose, 21.07.19). But this is not, as he says, a "society that has forgotten its history", simply one which has had its past manipulated by politicians anxious for the truth to be kept hidden.
   Isn`t membership of the EU thought by many to have prevented the UK returning to its "glorious past"? Many even believe that our managing  to survive "on our own" through two world wars proves that coping with a No-deal Brexit will be a doddle! The little progress made since the teaching of inaccurate, nationalist history in the early 20th century ensured millions volunteered in 1914 goes much of the way to explaining the Brexit vote in 2016.
   A prime minister who has written pseudo-history books about Churchill, and contributed to the myopia which governs our history studies, is the last thing this country needs in these divided times.The next non-Tory government should immediately attempt to end this nonsense, with a possible start being the opening up the 1.2 million files hidden away in Hanslope Park to our historians and students. What better way to ensure studying history at all levels can be both exciting and valuable to a society that has been served badly by history for over a century? The problem, Mr Hutton, is not "forgetting",  it`s never having been told the truth in the first place!

Friday 26 July 2019

Boris "Unchained"! Heaven help us

Jonathan Freedland`s assertion that Johnson`s cabinet "is startlingly right wing" is, sadly, something of an understatement (From today, the Brexiters will have no one else to blame, 25/07/19). The co-authors of "Britannia Unchained", which infamously in 2012 described British workers as "among the worst idlers in the world", and British children having no aspiration, being only "interested in football and pop music", are in such dominant positions, they are bound to have a huge influence on all policies. With Raab and Patel at the Foreign and Home offices respectively, Truss the International Trade secretary and Kwarteng attending cabinet meetings as business minister, all talk of Johnson`s "One Nation" conservatism is clearly nonsense!
  So much for the prime minister`s pledges on "uniting our country"! The book actually stated that the UK should stop the irrelevant debates about "sharing the pie between manufacturing and services, the north and the south, women and men". Heaven help us!

Wednesday 24 July 2019

May`s duplicity

How May has the brass neck to criticise Johnson, albeit by implication, for "telling people what you think they want to hear", when her leadership contest victory was achieved in 2016 by exactly the same means, is beyond belief (If Mrs May`s parting shot was meant to deliver hard truths, it missed the target, 18/07/19). She promised not only to "unite the party", but to sort out Brexit and "make Britain work for everyone" (Theresa May wins first round of voting in Tory leadership race, 05/06/16). May pledged more on the steps of her new Downing Street home, but her fights for the "just about managing", and against "burning injustices" ended with that same speech, whilst  the "privileged few" have, because of her government`s ludicrously unfair education and fiscal policies, extended their hold on British society.
   With no workers` representatives on company boards, May even wants us to see her "naming and shaming" policy as a "modern industrial strategy", even though it has had no effect on companies` lack of investment, their short-termism or overall corporate greed. If the "refusal to shift from a rigid ideology" is the reason for "Britain`s predicament", there can be no excuse for her continuation of callous and unnecessary austerity policies, based as they were on the Tory belief in shrinking the state (Britain moving towards a dark place of hatred and a form of absolutism - May, 18/07/19). With victims of the Windrush scandal still suffering, and memories of the "Go home vans" of 2013 still strong, even May`s criticism of Trump`s most recent racist outburst has to be taken at face value. The editorial`s description of her legacy as "flimsy" is more than generous for a prime minister whose duplicity has been as equally evident as that of her predecessor!

Tuesday 23 July 2019

Guardian letter on Iran

What on earth did the UK government expect to happen (Tensions in Gulf stoked by seizure of UK-linked tankers, 20/07/19)? By detaining the Iranian tanker, Grace 1, two weeks ago, apparently at the behest of the US, the UK immediately put at risk not only the safety of all British-flagged shipping operating in the Gulf, but also the efforts to rescue the nuclear deal with Iran. 
         The sensible approach, using all diplomatic means to organise a quid pro quo deal on the tankers, with the future release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe also included, is probably asking too much of a government so in thrall to Trump`s Twitter account. Instead Britain`s response will be more likely one aimed at getting the president`s approval, threatening Iran with dire consequences, without of course, stating what they might be. All Tories will bemoan the fact that not enough spare naval vessels are available to escort the tankers through the Gulf of Hormuz, and use it to ensure defence spending gats a massive boost as soon as Johnson can fix it. If Tory politicians were capable of such joined-up thinking, it would be conceivable that the government`s behaviour was designed for just that outcome!
      Alleged "patriotic" wars can prove extremely beneficial electorally for right-wing governments. The more ships patrolling in the Gulf, the increased likelihood there is of other "incidents" taking place. No one should forget how the Vietnam war formally started in 1964, with the American government "misrepresenting" a supposed attack in the Gulf of Tonkin on the "USS Maddox" on August 2nd, and American warships firing on the "Tonkin ghosts" two days later!

Monday 8 July 2019

Private schools and "nuclear option"

The "nuclear option" of scrapping private schools may well currently be "deemed impossible", but what Sonia Sodha describes as  "uncomfortable thinking" could at least result in making Britain "less elitist" (Don`t blame parents for wanting the best for their kids. Change the private school system instead, 30.06.19). VAT charges on school fees is a start, but ally them to ending the charitable status of independent schools, which enables them to avoid 80% of their business rates, and demanding they enter all pupils for the newly-reformed and more rigorous GCSE and A-level examinations, and Sodha`s "damp squib" becomes more potent!
       Universities should be playing their part, too, by accepting a "privilege cap" which limits the proportion of students accepted from private schools at the national figure of 7%. This would force universities into adopting contextual admissions policies, and make more room for pupils from the underfunded schools, from underprivileged families and from economically deprived areas, and moreover, whose potential remains largely untapped. Far fairer, also, to insist that not only the only entry qualifications for our state-funded universities from UK applicants should only be either the highly-regulated A-levels or the BTEC vocational qualifications, but ending the role of interviews in any admissions process. Could there be a more effective deterrent to getting able pupils from working class backgrounds to apply to Oxbridge than the thought of an hour-long questioning by academics? Test their ability after three years of their education, not after eighteen years of being disadvantaged!
      Results of a survey by the Independent Schools Council, showing that "almost 6 in 10 parents" would use private education if they could afford it, are not a justification for its existence, especially as the alternative for many years has usually been the local comp, short of teachers, funds and high Ofsted ratings. The shortfall in recent government spending on state schools has, of course, been both appalling and deliberate, creating the "elitist" society in which Tory politicians thrive. Johnson and Hunt`s silence on their preferences for divisive grammar and private schools has been deafening!