Lineker and the BBC

Being paid £1.75m for part-time work at the BBC whilst earning shedloads more for advertising crisps and presenting a few programmes at BT Sport, Gary Lineker is probably not best placed to voice opinions about the "broadcaster`s fundamental problem" (Lineker: make BBC licence fee voluntary, 28/01/20). In fact, with the BBC preparing to announce cuts "to reduce costs by millions of pounds", it is being given a wonderful opportunity to prove the worth of its justification for paying such huge salaries (BBC cuts; Newsnight and World at One among targets, 25/01/20). If some presenters are to be "asked to work across programmes and channels", others will inevitably find themselves surplus to requirements, so it will be interesting to see if they are indeed snapped up by rival broadcasters. The claim that such "talent" had to be paid salaries ten times or more the national average for fear of defections to the likes of commercial radio, Sky and ITV can now be put to the test (BBC is paying too much for talent it can afford to lose, 24/07/17). 

           Indeed, free transfers would in many cases prove most welcome, creating job opportunities for young presenters with gender-equal starting salaries of a mere £100,00!

"One-nation Toryism"? Really?

As Toby Helm says, "early noises by prime ministers after election wins often turn out to be little more than meaningless mood music", and Johnson`s claim to be a "Brexity Hezza" is no exception ("Brexity Hezza" or rightwing ideologue: who is the real PM? 19.01.20). His repeated claims to be a "one-nation Conservative" were challenged in the Guardian by Michael Heseltine himself (Boris Johnson has no right to call himself a one-nation Conservative, 12/09/19), with  Heseltine`s own definition of the concept, "governing for rich and poor, young and old, black and white, north and south", clearly excluding all Tory administrations from being worthy of the description. As Andrew Rawnsley acknowledges, "infrastructure spending in the Midlands and the north" will not be sufficient to retain votes in the "left behind" areas (It won`t be easy for Johnson to keep his pledges to his new friends in the north, 19.01.20).

     Will Johnson really legislate to help renters if it risks losing the support of wealthy landlords and property owners? He has already refused Liverpool council`s application to extend its landlord licensing scheme, which required rented properties to  meet fire, electric and gas safety standards, and which had resulted in the prosecution of almost 250 rogue landlords. How will the housing problems in all constituencies, not just northern ones, be solved without massive funding to local governments? More funding for schools will not reduce teacher workload or solve recruitment and retention problems. Johnson`s plan for social care is non-existent. Propping up Flybe because it "connects regional airports" is unlikely to be repeated too often, especially if the intervention antagonises not only cabinet members "hostile to an active state", but an electorate increasingly concerned about climate change.

   Keeping pledges is not one of Johnson`s strengths, and any policies which threaten London`s dominance of the economy, or the financial security of the Tory party, are unlikely to reach the statute book during his premiership. 

State schools can`t win!

Your recent article on the "shocking levels of sexual harassment in public and at school" to which girls are subjected included another very important point about our state schools. It said, quite rightly, that the government is "making it harder, not easier, for schools to support their pupils". How true this is.

     Another recent news item emphasised the point further, that state schools, especially those in the more disadvantaged areas, simply can`t win! After years of Ofsted`s criticism for their examination results not being as good as those of their middle-class neighbours, often after doing really well in terms of pupil progress, with excellent teachers working very hard, these underfunded and often understaffed state schools now are getting accused of gaming the system. Why? Because of trying everything to improve GCSE grades, a strategy now described as delivering "success without substance". Terrified of having bad Ofsted reports, with the additional  threat of going into "special measures", many schools started their GCSE courses in year 9, simply to improve examination results and the future prospects of their pupils. Ofsted are now criticising them because of having too narrow curricula!  

In the private sector, where there really is a "gaming of the system" taking place, schools are allowed, without ever receiving criticism,  to avoid the newly-reformed and more rigorous GCSEs and A-Levels by taking IGCSEs, and examinations mostly set and marked by independent school teachers, called Pre-Us. Whatever happened to equality of opportunity and level playing fields? 

       Having different rules for state and private schools, and even having different routes into our state-funded universities, is simply not on! 

  I await with interest to hear what the Labour leadership candidates think about this, and the future of Ofsted!

How is the Labour party similar to the Beatles?

With the leadership hustings taking place in Liverpool last Saturday, it seems apposite to ask the question:

In what ways is the Labour party like the Beatles?

In no ways is probably the correct answer, but if some dates were inserted, 1961 after the Beatles, 2020 after Labour party, answers emerge!

Imagine. The Cavern Club, Liverpool, November 1961. Inside, some of the most exciting music ever heard is being played. The Beatles, with three of the most gifted and creative musicians of the century, with the potential to change popular music for ever in Britain, and perhaps beyond., are on the stage.

But as yet, their appeal is limited, mostly local and in Hamburg.

 Fast forward to Labour, 2020. The potential is here, too, with policies that can change the political scene in the UK, perhaps for ever. Its appeal is also limited. Like the Beatles nearly sixty years ago, fine-tuning is needed, changes in personnel must be contemplated, no matter how difficult (Pete Best was very popular!), but the fundamental basis needs no alteration.

  With Epstein`s arrival, and a little later the influence of George Martin, changes were made which widened the appeal of the Beatles. There was no change of direction needed, just some modifications made in appearance and repertoire. Out went the leather jackets, too threatening;  the cheeky humour had to stay. No telling any audience member to" eff off if they didn`t like it", but still okay to tell a richer audience they could, instead of clapping their hands when "Twist and Shout" was being played, just "rattle their jewellery"!

     As for the music, keep the rockers, and use that unique creativity to come up with plenty of new ideas and original songs. No need to play their own version of every popular song, concentrate on the detail and the execution. 

  Back to Labour. 

. No need to change direction, just some of the personnel. No need to change the main policies, just fine-tune them and reduce their number. Widening appeal is essential, but without getting rid of basic policies which underpin the very fabric of the party - reducing inequality, public ownership, workers` rights, housing and education have to remain as the core of every manifesto.

 Lots of Corbynism must remain, but there has to be fine-tuning, and sadly, the "Pete Bests" have had their day!

Don`t let Johnson "wing it" at PMQs

Johnson`s disgraceful refusal to apologise to the 92 year old World War II veteran forced to spend hours on a hospital trolley spoke volumes, both of the man who ridiculously claims to be at the head  of a "people`s government", and of a parliamentary system which allows prime ministers to, in his words, "wing it".

   What makes matters so much worse, of course, is that we are dealing with a prime minister who has made an early commitment to "cabinet government", which as everyone knows is an excuse for him to avoid parliamentary scrutiny at the despatch box. Add to this Johnson`s all too conspicuous penchant for overlong sunshine breaks, and presumably Cummings`s requirement that the PMQ format be restricted to 30 minutes, and it becomes obvious Labour needs a new PMQ strategy - one which will place the most pressure on the prime minister, cause him embarrassment, and most important of all, not allow him any opportunity to "wing it"!

      The planning for the session has to be detailed, with the angle and wording of the questioning the result of deliberation by the whole leadership team. With Johnson prone to waffle and obfuscation at the very hint of being required to have the slightest grasp of detail, every question should be framed to require exactly that! 

        Concentrating all six on the one subject lets Johnson off the hook; but six questions on different subjects, however, would prove decidedly more challenging, especially if each one was prefaced with an unfulfilled election promise from Johnson, and included revealing factual data. 

        He`s "winged it" all his life. It`s time he was called to account!

Johnson avoiding scrutiny

With the target requiring hospitals to treat 95% "of A&E arrivals within four hours" not having been met since July 2015, and "performance dropping 10% in the past year alone", it is difficult to see Matt Hancock`s plan to remove it as anything other than "moving goalposts to avoid scrutiny" (Doctors lead outcry at plan to scrap waiting time target, 16/01/20). In fact, the avoidance of having to face embarrassing figures and results is the one clear policy which has emerged from the Johnson/Cummings administration since the election, and as it was the funding and staffing of the NHS which caused the Tories most worries during the election campaign, this target-scrapping is hardly surprising.

      Indeed, it is almost definitely the tip of the iceberg, with evading scrutiny bound to be at the core of any government headed by a man whose entire career has been based on "winging-it", and whose election campaign included welching on interviews and debates, and hiding in a fridge!  Johnson has already made a prime ministerial commitment to "cabinet government", which, as everyone knows, is an excuse for him to avoid parliamentary scrutiny at the despatch box. Add to this his all too conspicuous penchant for overlong sunshine breaks, and the decision to restrict the inevitably embarrassing  PMQs to thirty minutes, and the obvious conclusion is that the only target that matters is the one regarding Johnson`s rating at the polls!

Rawnsley on Starmer and leadership race

As Andrew Rawnsley says, Keir Starmer will indeed "find there is a price to pay for being the front-runner" in the Labour leadership race (Keir Starmer has the ability and the character, but what does he stand for? 12.01.20). Not only will he "get exposed to searching questions" about who he is, and what he stands for, he will also have to expect regular criticism from the chief political columnist in the main left-leaning Sunday newspaper in the UK.

       Although apparently not quite finished with his hatchet-job on Corbyn, Rawnsley cannot resist starting ones on Long-Bailey and Starmer. The former clearly can`t win, criticised for being "unsure" about becoming "the torchbearer for Corbynism", when being "sure" would have led to her vilification. Uncertain about the latter`s political beliefs, Rawnsley resorts both to describing his "diagnosis" of Labour`s defeat as "vague", when anything else at this time would almost certainly mean political suicide, and including someone else`s opinion that he can be uninspiring and "boring". In attempting to unite the so-called "soft-left" of the party with pragmatic Corbynites, Starmer has to be reminded of the "inherent contradictions in such a broad coalition" which will have to be faced, yet when Corbyn rejected the idea of a "broad church", he was accused of "ideological zealotry and toxic factionalism".

    Presumably, Rawnsley will not be satisfied until the Labour party has a leader who totally rejects left-wing policies to transform society and reduce inequality, who supports Trump`s actions in the Middle East, and who thinks the use of contextual data in universities` admissions procedures is unnecessary, but that ten years of austerity was!

University reforms and "fat cat" headteachers

Jonathan Wolff rightly places "student mental health" at the top of his 2020 university "wishlist", but omits to state an obvious point (Opinion, 07/01/20). All universities should be obliged to detail in their prospectuses what they provide for students suffering mental health problems, something that will be as important to many students and parents as the academic courses themselves.

    He is right to say that the current "casualisation of the academic workforce", and the exploitation of teaching and research staff, "need to change", but fails to mention that this requires a wholesale reform of the pay structures and an end to the obscene level of pay awarded to many vice-chancellors.

    Wolff surprisingly has nothing in his "wishlist" on universities` admissions procedures, the over-use of unconditional offers to get "bums on seats", or the need to make greater use of contextual data in order to give a fairer chance of admission to students from underprivileged backgrounds and underfunded state schools. With more private schools opting for alternatives to the newly reformed A-levels, which Ofsted describe as "national qualifications based on content set by the government", reform is needed to ensure that all students take the same route into our state-funded universities!

     My 2020 vision of the higher education sector differs from that of Wolff;  if it is indeed to act as "a central pillar of civil society", the so-called "top" universities have to change their obviously biased admissions` procedures which favour the top two social classes, stop blaming the Teaching Excellence Framework for what David Lammy called their "systemic bias", and realise that a level playing field has to extend beyond five of the home counties (Oxford faces anger over failure to improve diversity among students, 23/05/18).

If the government really wants "to get a grip on excessive executive pay" for bosses of school academy chains, it has to do much more than bring about some "five-figure pay cuts" (Government pushes academies to cut excessive pay, 11/01/20). For a start, would anyone earning a quarter of a million a year really notice if forced to take a £15000 pay cut?

  The important point the government should be making is that no head, regardless of how many schools under his or her responsibility, is worth paying anything like 10-15 times the amount paid to classroom teachers. Good leadership is important, but where the learning takes place, where top exam grades are earned, and where relationships are formed, is in the classroom, under the auspices of the overworked and underpaid teachers!

i letter on Ofsted

As disingenuous as ever, Ofsted has "pinpointed 415 stuck schools", typically in "deprived areas" or "with a neighbouring big city" (Ofsted picks out 415 "stuck" schools, 08/01.20). Unbelievably, Ofsted blames the fact that these schools are "continually changing" and are "unable to recruit and retain good teachers"! After all these years, you would have hoped by now that the national inspection regulator would have a clue!

    How can Ofsted possibly ignore its own role in driving away teachers from an overworked, underpaid and over-inspected profession? Even when schools in underprivileged areas do well in terms of pupil progress, their achievements are not recognised, but instead the schools are given negative grades, because their examination results do not match those of schools in middle class, affluent areas.Teachers unsurprisingly are driven away, and recruitment problems mean schools in challenging areas with deprived intakes often lack subject expertise, as well as the funds to spend on improving academic and discipline standards.

  Instead of the constant criticism, teachers who are now working harder than ever, deserve praise from inspectors. Is it any wonder that one of the most popular of the Labour party`s manifesto proposals last month was to get rid of Ofsted?

Election lessons for Labour

Whilst there is no doubting the "paramount significance of Brexit in the election", there are some essential lessons which must be learned if Labour is to defeat the Tories in the near future. Not only did Labour panic half way through the campaign, they lacked a coherent strategy, and even took their own candidates by surprise with some late announcements.

  No matter how bad things might look during a campaign, it is imperative not to add to an already congested manifesto. Have a game plan and stick with it is the obvious sporting metaphor which can be applied here. The late promise of an extra £58bn for the loss of pension for women born in the 1950s should either have been detailed in the manifesto and grey book, or left until later, as was originally planned. Similarly, "free broadband for all" needed more thought; why give £30 a month to the well off, when children are going hungry, and homeless numbers escalate?

   As for the ridiculous announcement about every family being £6000 better off annually....!! Please don`t tell me this was decided after a leadership team discussion. It didn`t need a right wing media looking for every opportunity to criticise Labour, to see that this was a huge mistake.

   On the subject of the media, something also of "paramount significance" in the election, surely the constant bias in the press and BBC was to be expected? The answer to the problem has to be for Labour to publicise everything positive themselves, and for a disciplined approach, with everyone making the same point at the same time. Was it too much to expect, for instance, when Friends of the Earth awarded points out of 45 for the main parties` green manifestos, for Labour politicians to boast about their 33 points, compared with the Tories measly 5.5? Even the Today interviewers would have been hard pressed to embarrass Labour over that one! With every passing year, green policies will figure more highly. For the next election, they have to be emphasised even more!

     Labour`s strategy has to be thought out carefully in advance. They must have known that taxation policies were going to be crucial, and that the Tories would claim that most people would be taxed more under a Labour government. It`s what they`ve been saying for years. That means more explanation was required, as it`s clear most voters don`t understand how income tax works. The same applies to all the spending needed to repair the damage nine years of austerity have inflicted. Very late on in the campaign, I heard John McDonnell say something about the £375bn found for the banks after the crash in 2008-9, but nothing about how the Tories had borrowed far more than the last Labour government, or how spending plans compared with other European economies. At least, attempt a brief explanation of multipliers, and how most government spending returns to the Treasury in the form of taxation. Accurate figures and charts should be prepared beforehand, and every candidate told to use them, and be on the ball on simple economics.

      Taxation has to be a key issue, if Labour is to win next time, not only in terms of fairer policies, but with regard to transparency as well. It`s hard to believe that some leading Tories have not been involved in tax avoidance schemes, or have worked in companies devising such schemes, or have cash squirreled away off-shore. If Labour politicians have, they should not be standing. All Labour candidates, including the leader and shadow cabinet should make public all recent tax returns prior to the election, and make a big show of them!

    The latter could be kept secret, and come as a surprise to all the other parties. It was noticeable how Labour had some great opportunities to embarrass the Tories, but failed to keep their powder dry. Take, for instance, the leaked papers about America`s involvement with the NHS, which Corbyn announced just before the main televised debate with Johnson. Why on earth wasn`t this kept as a surprise, and sprung on Johnson during the debate? Imagine his response to something unexpected!

One last thing: Labour must not play too fairly. Wait for the Tories to have difficult interviews before committing to them. Don`t expect the Tories to do the decent thing, as they will always want to avoid scrutiny. Only allow politicians who will insist on having their say, and not allow interruptions, to go live on air, on such things as the Today programme. On the other hand Labour`s top team should all appear on the less challenging programmes, to show the "human face" of their socialism, and to talk about hobbies and family life.

    These are all lessons for Labour to learn. Obvious aren`t they? So why weren`t they learnt before the election? 

BBC`s "confluence of cock-ups"!!

It`s difficult to see the BBC replacing film of Johnson making silly errors like placing his red wreath upside down at the Cenotaph with a video taken years earlier of him with a green wreath as a cock-up, as Emily Maitlis.claims (The BBC isn`t biased, says Emily Maitlis. "It`s just a confluence of cock-ups". 29.12.19). Editing out the laughter at Johnson in a news item on a televised debate is equally hard to see as a mistake. Indeed, it is difficult to take much of what Maitlis says seriously. Is there anyone in the country who saw Prince Andrew in her interview as a "man who had really come to get things off his chest"? Similarly, could anyone have watched her Newsnight interview, packed as it was with interruptions and put-downs, with Labour`s Barry Gardiner in election week, and describe it as "impartial"?

      The director general might well refuse to accept accusations of bias from "critics who jump on a handful of examples", but the anti-Labour prejudice had been obvious since Corbyn`s election as leader (BBC staff express fear of public distrust after election coverage, 14/12/19)..During the campaign in particular, the difference in the way Labour and Tory politicians were treated on the Today programme had nothing to do with "cock-ups", and everything to do with a deliberate policy on the programme. How else can the constant interrupting, the insistence on Labour answering the question, and the refusal to prevent Tories making political points at length, which had little relevance to the question, be explained?

  Fran Unsworth, director of BBC news and current affairs, told the Guardian that "people just aren`t buying" their "denials and explanations"..Is it any wonder?