Angela Rayner was right!

How much lower can this government go? Having proved itself totally corrupt and incompetent throughout the Covid crisis, it has now whipped its MPs to vote against Labour`s motion to "continue directly funding provision of free school meals over the school holidays until Easter 2021" (Star, 22/10/20). The business minister Paul Scully actually said on television that children had been going hungry "for years", as if it was no big deal, and why should governments worry about it anyway! Another Tory MP, Ben Bradley said that free meals "increase dependency". One must assume then that he and all the hundreds of Tories who voted against the motion never take advantage of the heavily subsidised meals at the Commons restaurants, or dined out during the "eat out to help out campaign", as it would surely have made them too dependent on the state for their cheap food! After all, they only earn around £80,000 a year plus expenses, plus 2nd job salaries for many! Presumably they never choose to eat "Chargrilled ribeye steak with hand cut chips, tomato, mushroom and Bearnaise sauce" at the Members` Dining Room, as it would only cost them £9.19? The "pan-fried salmon with courgette provencale, buttered cocotte potatoes, black olive crumb" must mostly go to waste as these conscience-laden MPs couldn`t possibly eat it for fear of taking advantage of the state`s generosity! What a disgraceful shower these Tory MPs are, and how apt Angela Rayner`s description of them was! What the Labour party should now pledge is firstly an end to these less than half-price meal deals at the Commons, and secondly, free school meals for disadvantaged children all year round, in perpetuity!

3 week exam delay

Is it any wonder education unions have "accused the government of a dereliction of duty" over its decision to go ahead with next year`s exams (Star, 12/10/20)? Not only does it make the exams even more unfair than is usually the case, it displays total ignorance of what goes on in England`s state schools, especially those in the more deprived areas, and a lack of appreciation of the anxiety such decisions cause both teachers and students. As the DfE thinks the current system of examinations is the "best and fairest way" of judging students` performance, it is hardly surprising that it cannot devise a "plan B" which only involves mock exams in "controlled conditions". This begs the question as to what sort of "uncontrolled" conditions do they think state schools normally carry out their internal exams! Having "mock exams" as the only back up is obviously another mistake, but hardly surprising in view of the exams taken in most private schools as a way of avoiding A-levels: aren`t these Pre-U exams just like "mocks" in that they are set and marked by their teachers? No wonder 75% get top grades! Williamson and his team clearly cannot understand how teachers use "mocks"in the real world, either to give encouragement to students or to provide extra incentive for greater effort, or how "specimen papers" cannot take into consideration the disruption many students have already faced since going back to school. Pushing back the start of the exams by three weeks, according to Ofqual`s chief regulator, Glenys Stacey speaking to the BBC, will "be particularly beneficial for those who have more time away from school than others"! How on earth could anyone, let alone the person in charge of exams for our state school pupils, reach that conclusion? That could only be the case if all the other exam entrants, who missed few lessons because of the virus, and who suffered no gaps in their learning because of ample modern technology, were placed in isolation cells without books or tablets for those three weeks, to stop them having all that extra time for revision. Adding to all the unfairness is the norm-referencing which determines the number of top grades to be awarded after the papers have been marked. As long as that exists, and clearly doesn`t in the Pre-U exams, the exam system remains flawed. The government needs to have faith in the teaching profession, and go for moderated teacher assessment on a permanent basis! Presumably those of us concerned by the government`s insistence on having pupils assessed by GCSE and A-level examinations next summer are meant to be appeased because Nick Gibb, the minister for school standards, told the education committee that the issue which worries him "more than any other is unfairness and unevenness" (Fears for exams as virus keeps 400,000 off school in England, 21/10/20). Grades, apparently, are going to be "adjusted to reflect lost learning", which will at least make a change from having grades lowered because of the usual restrictions imposed by norm-referencing. The fact that the DfE is working with Ofqual to deliver fairness will hardly decrease concerns when Ofqual`s chief regulator, Glenys Stacey, speaking to the BBC, said the three week delay will "be particularly beneficial for those who have more time away from school than others"! Staged assessments, "moderated to ensure fairness", as a previous editorial commented, is looking the only option (By failing to plan for next year`s exams, ministers are letting pupils down, 10/10/20).Teachers need to be told to prepare pupils for another year of exam-free assessment, and to set assessment exercises such as "mocks", classroom tests, and research or homework tasks which can be marked and sent to examiners for checking, Gibb has been an education minister since 2010, so it`s strange that the unfairness in our assessment system has not worried him b

Of course it`s affordable!

With the prime minister saying he doesn`t "want Britons to rely on Uncle Sugar the taxpayer" (The poor will suffer because the PM gets no buzz from compassion `s sugar rush, 16/10/20), and the chancellor refusing to make the support package more generous because of "concerns about spiralling borrowing" ("We must not make the north a sacrificial lamb", 16/210/20) it`s clear the Tory propaganda machine is stepping up a gear.. What is never mentioned by the government is the fact that much of what has been spent already on the furlough schemes and business grants has come from the Bank of England`s quantitative easing measures, billions which have wrongly been included in the national debt figures. There is still plenty of scope for, as the IMF suggests, more borrowing, and with little risk of inflation, more quantitative easing. It is worth remembering that when the economy needed a boost after the 2008-9 crisis, no such concerns were shown when £375bn was created for the banks to lend to businesses, and none either, when they didn`t!

Moderated teacher assessment is the answer!

Is it any wonder education unions have "accused the government of a dereliction of duty" over its decision to go ahead with next year`s exams (Star, 12/10/20)? Not only does it make the exams even more unfair than is usually the case, it displays total ignorance of what goes on in England`s state schools, especially those in the more deprived areas, and a lack of appreciation of the anxiety such decisions cause both teachers and students. As the DfE thinks the current system of examinations is the "best and fairest way" of judging students` performance, it is hardly surprising that it cannot devise a "plan B" which only involves mock exams in "controlled conditions". This begs the question as to what sort of "uncontrolled" conditions do they think state schools normally carry out their internal exams! Having "mock exams" as the only back up is obviously another mistake, but hardly surprising in view of the exams taken in most private schools as a way of avoiding A-levels: aren`t these Pre-U exams just like "mocks" in that they are set and marked by their teachers? No wonder 75% get top grades! Williamson and his team clearly cannot understand how teachers use "mocks"in the real world, either to give encouragement to students or to provide extra incentive for greater effort, or how "specimen papers" cannot take into consideration the disruption many students have already faced since going back to school. Pushing back the start of the exams by three weeks, according to Ofqual`s chief regulator, Glenys Stacey speaking to the BBC, will "be particularly beneficial for those who have more time away from school than others"! How on earth could anyone, let alone the person in charge of exams for our state school pupils, reach that conclusion? That could only be the case if all the other exam entrants, who missed few lessons because of the virus, and who suffered no gaps in their learning because of ample modern technology, were placed in isolation cells without books or tablets for those three weeks, to stop them having all that extra time for revision. Adding to all the unfairness is the norm-referencing which determines the number of top grades to be awarded after the papers have been marked. As long as that exists, and clearly doesn`t in the Pre-U exams, the exam system remains flawed. The government needs to have faith in the teaching profession, and go for moderated teacher assessment on a permanent basis/ As the DfE thinks the current system of examinations is the "best and fairest way of judging students` performance", is is hardly surprising that it cannot devise a "plan B" which only involves "mock exams in controlled conditions" (Pupils will sit strict mock exams as "plan B" to prevent rerun of A-level and GCSE chaos, 10/10/20). Williamson and his team clearly cannot understand how teachers use "mocks", either to give encouragement to students or to provide extra incentive for greater effort, or how "specimen papers" cannot take into consideration the disruption many students have already faced since going back to school. As the editorial states, "staged assessments, moderated to ensure fairness" does make much more sense (By failing to plan for next year`s exams, ministers are letting pupils down, 10/10/20).Teachers need to be told to prepare pupils for another year of exam-free assessment, and to set assessment exercises such as "mocks", classroom tests, and research or homework tasks which can be marked and sent to examiners for checking, and verification or amendment of the proposed grades. The need to avoid the use of an algorithm to enforce norm-referencing on state schools` examinations should be obvious to Ofqual, and perhaps even to Williamson, but no doubt private schools will still manage to dominate the so-called "top" universities with grade inflation allowed to continue unabated in their Pre-U exams.

Increase in MPs` pay??

It is, of course, disgraceful that the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) should be proposing a 4.1% pay rise for all MPs (Star, 09/10/10). It`s no wonder that unions have "condemned" it, especially when "ministers refuse to negotiate a rise for public sector workers", whose efforts were so loudly applauded everywhere during the first wave of the pandemic . Admittedly, some MPs have spoken out against it, promising to refuse it and so on, but the fact that it has been contemplated highlights both the economic divisions in the country, and the lack of awareness of so many people with power. Take, for instance, the Ipsa chair, Richard Lloyd, who apparently stated that a review of MPs` salaries was needed because of "the uncertainties arising from the coronavirus pandemic", which for most people would be an obvious reason for having no such review at all. Some right-wingers actually believe the salary of MPs should be increased dramatically, in order to attract what they call a "higher calibre" of person to enter politics, but presumably they mean the sort of Oxbridge graduates who now are fast-tracked into the business and financial sectors, where they can be expected to have salaries in excess of a million, plus bonuses and share deals, annually. That is exactly the sort of person that parliament, and the country, does not need; there are too many of those there now, privately educated and profit obsessed, whose objectives for the UK have led to increased inequality and the demise of social mobility. MPs should not need the incentive of a higher salary than the one currently available; at over three times the national average, plus expenses, it is more than enough to provide a very comfortable living, and if it doesn`t satisfy them, they are clearly in the wrong job. If the incentive of having the opportunity to improve the lives of the people isn`t sufficient, it`s time to move on and leave room for people for wh

Where does Starmer stand?

With numerous articles on the subject, including the headline lead on the front page (UK at "critical" point ahead of new Covid restrictions, 12/10/20), and John Harris`s column in the Journal (Lockdowns dictated from London are causing chaos, 12/10/20), one would have expected to see at least one mention of the Labour leader. Starmer has frequently complained about the government`s incompetence, and indeed, shown sympathy with locally elected leaders over the lack of consultation about Covid measures. But in this time of crisis, is that enough? He will, no doubt, give the Labour party`s support to the grading of areas into three tiers, but should, in fact, have been calling for such a system weeks ago, when the lack of clarity was already obvious. He has rightly criticised the test and trace system, but not its privatisation. Now, when Labour mayors and council leaders are in dispute with a "shambolic and dictatorial" government, Starmer`s position is far from clear. Does he agree with Burnham and Anderson that Sunak`s plan "to pay people affected by business closures only two-thirds of their lost pay" is totally inadequate? If he doesn`t, Labour supporters need to know how he thinks affected people should manage over the coming months. If he does, he should be making the point repeatedly and loudly. It`s all very well to want to be seen as supportive to the government during such an unprecedented crisis, but when a large area of Labour support such as the North is being "locked down on the cheap", the Labour leader needs to get his act together! At the moment, there is no doubt where the blame lies for this "omnishambles", but an all-too passive Opposition does not help matter

Labour should attack Sunak`s economics

Sunak is not the first Tory chancellor to claim he has a "sacred responsibility to balance the books for future generations", whilst doing nothing to ease graduates` debts, improve young people`s chances in the housing market, increase social mobility, close pay ratios, or even give the most obvious form of help to them by increasing spending on all aspects of state education (Chancellor warns of "hard choices" to address debt, 06/10/20). "Future generations" would benefit far more if the need for food banks was eradicated, and there were guarantees of jobs and decent pay. The International Monetary Fund`s advice to increase state spending ( The chancellor`s speech signals that he wants to go back to the future, 06/10/20) is likely to be ignored, just as it was in 2013. Just two months before his March budget, George Osborne was told by the IMF of the need for a "reassessment of fiscal policy" (Austerity is failing, IMF tells Osborne, 24/01/13). Work by the IMF`s chief economist, Olivier Blanchard, on fiscal multipliers had shown the devastating effects tax and spending cuts were having on economies. Naturally, Osborne ignored the advice and went on to continue with departments` spending cuts, reduce corporation tax to 20%, and cap public sector pay awards to 1%! When it comes to a choice for the Tories between a Roosevelt-like New Deal, as Larry Elliott suggested, to rescue jobs and businesses (Britain needs a New Deal, but all we get is confusion, 02/10/20), and austerity measures, it`s already clear where Sunak`s rhetoric will take us! Amazing how the chancellor can come out with all the usual Tory nonsense about "supporting businesses and communities", and using "the overwhelming might of the British state" to "create, support and extend opportunity" to as many people as possible, whilst still possessing "a sacred responsibility to balance the books for future generations" (Star, 05/10/20). What a pity this "sacred responsibility" to future generations does not extend to ensuring they have sufficient government expenditure on their education, housing and job prospects, or even on eradicating the need for any future use of food banks! Apparently, the International Monetary Fund is saying the government should increase state spending, advice which is likely to be ignored, just as it was in 2013. Just two months before his March budget, George Osborne was told by the IMF that he needed to reassess his fiscal policy". Work on the effect of fiscal multipliers by the IMF`s chief economist, Olivier Blanchard, had shown the devastating consequences tax and spending cuts were having on economies. Naturally, Osborne ignored the advice and went on to continue with departments` spending cuts, to reduce corporation tax to 20%, and to cap public sector pay awards to 1%! Anything this chancellor does is almost bound, as the trade union leaders say, to be like a "drop in the ocean". When there is an existential threat to our society, as there is now, governments must ignore considerations about budgets and debt, and opposition parties must tell them so, loudly!

Liverpool`s Abbey Road

With the controvery raging over the future of the old Abbey Cinema in Wavertree, it seems that two undoubted facts need to be taken into consideration. Firstly, that the popularity wordwide of the Beatles is set to last for many more years, and secondly, that Liverpool as a city could be doing far more to attract even more Beatle fans from all over the world. The first point is incontrovertible, and if the record company currently in charge of their recordings had any sense and re-released all the Beatles` albums on vinyl, with the original sleeve designs and at cut-price rates, yet more fans would be added. The second some might dispute, but seeing (last year!) hundreds of foreign tourists waiting to have their photographs taken beside the Penny Lane roadsign, should be evidence enough! After travelling thousands of miles, there has to be some disappointment that the city celebrates one of the most famous songs ever written with a meagre road sign! Now might be the time to promote again the building in the centre of Penny Lane, once Sergeant Pepper`s bistro, into becoming a Beatles` visitor centre, focussing on the Pepper album and the 1967 period. As well as information and posters on the walls relating to the period, I`m sure people with Beatle connections would be willing to voice or write messages, and there could be plenty of opportunities to buy Beatle merchandise. Just up the road a few hundred yards is the old Abbey Cinema, about to become a Lidl supermarket. Is it beyond the realms of possibility to believe that the council could come to some arrangement with the German owners, so that the bottom floor would be the shopping area whilst on higher floors would be a council-controlled Beatle Centre? Lidl could possibly sponsor it and consequently be allowed to use it in advertising etc. whilst the council could develop its potential for attracting fans by concentrating on the last year of the Beatles, and, of course, the album, Abbey Road. There would be planty of scope for music, videos, Rooftop Concert clips, and such like, plus yet more merchandise selling. Last but not least, why not change the name of the road linking Penny Lane and the old cinema, with a designated and safe cycle lane between the two, with the council providing the bikes! 2022 sees the 60th anniversary of the release of Love Me Do. Can anyone think of a better way for the city to celebrate, and benefit, than from the opening of two new Beatle visitor centres, and of Liverpool`s own Abbey Road?

Cabinet not chosen for ability!

The shadow work and pensions secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, is right to criticise Therese Coffey on not knowing "her own government`s advice on people returning to their workplace", but he can hardly be surprised (Star, 01/10/20). Every week we see ministers embarrassed by their confusion in front of select committee questioning, or hear their ignorance first-hand on the Today programme. Johnson himself frequently appears at a loss as to what is happening and to what his own government has decreed, but what did even the Tory MPs who voted for him as leader expect? What probably came as a surprise to them was the obvious incompetence of Tory colleagues. Johnson, under strict orders from Cummings, selected his cabinet ministers on the basis of their loyalty, not their ability, and consequently, we hear secretaries of state who clearly have not read, let alone understood and memorised, their briefing papers. and ministers like education minister Gillian Keegan unable to clarify Covid rules. Of course, all of us are confused about the rules, but we are not in the cabinet and about to face interrogation which will inevitably include questions about the new regulations to control coronavirus; if we were we would do some homework, something this arrogant bunch of incompetents is clearly incapable of doing. The fact that it hasn`t occurred to anyone that a three-tiered system of Covid regulations, at least until now, with simple add-ons to top up the nationwide "rule of six", is needed, when so many areas, notably with districts of extreme poverty and deprivation, are being given "local lockdown" instructions, is simply unforgivable. The only explanation has to be that if the nation is confused by the regulations, there is more chance there will be some waywardness, and more opportunities to transfer the blame on to the people!

Labour and the economy

It shouldn`t be left to Gordon Brown to warn that the Covid generation "faces a no work, no hope future" (Star, 28/09/20). Admittedly Labour has issued a statement about the problems facing those working in the "unviable" sectors, and the shadow chancellor has written to Sunak on the issue, but two factors make it urgent and essential that Labour do much more. Labour`s handling of the economy is still apparently seen by the electorate as a problem, whilst, with Sunak being possibly the Tory leader in the next general election, Starmer`s team cannot afford to spurn any economic open goals. Having written to the chancellor pointing out the weaknesses and inconsistencies of his latest plan, Anneliese Dodds will no doubt be able to say "I told you so" when things go wrong, as they almost certainly will, but much more is needed from the Opposition . Although the letter contains reasonable points, particularly about the insufficient size of the package, the need for worker retraining, and the effects on those in the performing arts, unless she is supported by the party leadership on the matter, Dodds will indeed struggle to be heard, and the letter ignored. It might well be the wrong time to expose the ingredients of the next Labour manifesto, but now has the be an opportune moment to go on an all-out offensive on the government`s economic strategy. The attack, however, must contain details of what Labour would be doing instead. This means firstly making the point that the UK`s national debt, is not a record £2.024tn as most of the right-wing press claim: £735bn of the so-called debt is owned by the government via the Bank of England`s bonds under its quantitative easing programme. Labour needs to be arguing for more borrowing and more QE; other countries have managed for years with a debt-to-GDP ratio of over 100%, and the UK could do the same, despite what the Tories say! What is the point of worrying about how to pay back debt, when the future of the whole economy is at stake? Labour`s priority has to be the health of the people first, the truly patriotic thing to do, and then the economy and people`s jobs. If they think Sunak has got it wrong, shout it, loud and clear!