Gay Weddings and the Church

In case you missed it, there has been a controversy lately, concerning gay marriage. The Roman Catholic Church has spoken out against it, in the face of the government's declared intent to legalise same sex unions, and is clearly out to resist this move. Two leading Catholic prelates have issued a letter to be read in churches, in which they say:
"The roots of the institution of marriage lie in our nature. Male and female we have been created, and written into our nature is this pattern of complementarity and fertility. This pattern is, of course, affirmed by many other religious traditions. Christian teaching fills out this pattern and reveals its deepest meaning, but neither the Church nor the State has the power to change this fundamental understanding of marriage itself."
As might be expected, this has upset a lot of people outside and within the Roman Catholic Church. Equalities minister Lynne Featherstone has said that the government is entitled to introduce same-sex marriages as a "change for the better".  She has also said that the church does not own marriage (it seems she was misquoting the Archbishop of Canterbury). Other outraged groups include the gay charity, Stonewall, and the organisation for gay catholics,Quest.
I have no intention of repeating the arguments and events of this matter, but, out of a wish to be fair to both sides, I would like to join the debate with a few observations of my own.
First, I would like to point out that the three great monotheistic religions are not, and have never been, tolerant of homosexuality. "Everybody knows this" (or do we?), but a few quotes are worth repeating. From the Old Testament, we get:
" If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them." (Leviticus, ch20, v13).
And then, from the New Testament:
"For this reason [idolatry] God gave them up to passions of dishonor; for even their females exchanged the natural use for that which is contrary to nature, and likewise also the males, having left the natural use of the female, were inflamed by their lust for one another, males with males, committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was fitting for their error." (Romans 1, v26-7).
Finally, the Koran:
Qur'an (4:16) - "If two men among you are guilty of lewdness, punish them both. If they repent and amend, Leave them alone".
So, for Jews, Christians and Muslims, it's really not a good idea to be gay. And for hundreds of years, these three monotheisms have been rather unkind to homosexuals of both sexes.
However, I have to say that we cannot dismiss the objections of the churches (principally the Catholics, admittedly) as simple bigotry and homophobia. When the Archbishops express their opposition to gay marriage, they are correct in their intrepretation of Christian doctrine. We may not agree with what they say, but we cannot condemn them simply for holding different views from the rest of society. As John Stuart Mill said:
"If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
In conclusion, I would like to ask a question. Since the three monotheistic religions are hostile, from first principles, to homosexuality, why do so many gay people even want to be practising Jews, Christians or Muslims? It would be better for gay people to celebrate their unions without concerning themselves about ecclesiastical approval. The opinions of senior prelates can safely be ignored - especially when so many of us - straight and gay - do not belong to the Roman Catholic Church anyway. As for gay catholics, I wish them well with their struggle to liberalise their church. They are the people best placed to challenge the prevailing theological viewpoint of the RC Church on this issue, and they will be the people who change it.

 

Supply Teaching, Privatisation and Cheap Labour

In view of the recent proposals by some local authorities to privatise the police, I thought it a good time to describe my own current experience in a privatised sector of education - supply teaching.
I retired from full time teaching in July, and, like many other retired teachers, set out to supplement my pension by doing supply work. Now, as it happens, I was a supply teacher twelve years ago, before I took up my last permanent post. At that time, in 2000, I was working as a local education authority (LEA) supply teacher, and received, after stoppages, about £110 a day. Now, after stoppages, I receive just £70 a day. By my reckoning, this amounts to a 44% drop in take-home wages over 12 years.
This is happening for two reasons. One is that I am still paying 40% income tax on my earnings, as I was when I was teaching full time. After April, I shall be on a lower tax band. Nevertheless, what I receive then will still be substantially less than my earnings back in 2000.
Lest I be accused of self-pity, let me say that I am well aware that there are many people worse off than I am. My heart goes out to my colleagues who have worked supply for years and seen their living standards drop - and their work dry up because of the cuts. I also know that there are hundreds of thousands of unemployed people who would happily take any job that paid them £70 a day. But this is not the point I wish to make.

Supply teacher pay has dropped because of one main reason - privatisation. Over the past decade, the supply teaching sector has been taken over by Supply agencies, who run their businesses for a profit. They make their profits by taking a cut from the daily pay of every employed supply teacher. That is why supply pay has fallen so much since 2000. The agencies compete with each other by offering their staff to schools at different daily rates of pay. As schools manage their own budgets, they tend to hire the cheapest supply teachers possible, which, in turn, adversely affects supply teachers' pay and conditions. Probably the worst off supply teachers are those who take on long-term supply posts in schools. This means they have the same workload as a permanent teacher, but with less pay and inferior working conditions (such as no sick pay). This can only be described as "cheap labour", and is only of benefit to younger teachers who are seeking permanent posts. Oh, and of course, the benefits it brings in supply agency profits and a reduced wage bill for schools.
So - what can we all learn from this? Well, it's pretty clear that privatisation does not work in favour of the workforce - any workforce. And that, I admit, is an understatement. Public sector workers, who are facing a third year of a pay freeze, would do well to be vigilant about their terms and conditions. This government of ours, with its strong monetarist leanings, is obviously out to attack all state services and their employees and replace them with private companies, underpaid labour and insecure working conditions. As I hope I have shown, the writing is on the wall.

Abu Qatada and the Intelligence Men

I can't say that I find Abu Qatada likeable. If half of what is said about him is true, he is a really nasty piece of work. Yet, in spite of the fact that he has had reported links with terrorist groups and has, allegedly, encouraged the killing of wives and children of Egyptian police officers, we are to continue to have him living among us. Besides which, he entered the UK on a forged UAE passport in 1993, which surely, even then, rendered him liable to imprisonment and deportation? Instead, he claimed asylum and was granted permission to stay until June 1998. During that time, he worked to support Egyptian Islamic Jihad (who murdered western tourists in Egypt) and the Algerian GIA (who murdered as many people as possible). In March 1995, Qatada issued a fatwa justifying the killing of the wives and children of "apostates" (i.e. Muslim men who abandoned their faith). In 2002 he issued a 10-page booklet as an apologia for the 9/11 attacks. He is wanted in eight countries, including the USA and Jordan. And, as we know, his conviction "in absentia" for inciting bomb attacks in Jordan is the reason why he cannot be deported. It seems that he might be tortured there, and his alleged co-conspirators are supposed to have been tortured to incriminate him.
Now, just about every section of opinion in the UK finds this outrageous, and the government are under severe pressure to act decisively in some way. Still, we are told that Qatada will only be on bail and will be strictly monitored. Not that this brings much relief to the general public.
But there is one section of UK society who might be relieved that Qatada has escaped deportation - the UK intelligence community. According to Mark Curtis, from whose excellent book, "Secret Affairs",I draw much of the information given here, MI5 tried, from 1993 onwards, to use Qatada as a double agent to inform on Islamic militants in Britain. Curtis writes:
"Qatada's lawyers have said that he was monitored by the security services from the mid-90s and that "his actions had a large degree of tacit approval".
Mi5 certainly said, in 1997, that Qatada was not even a Jihadist (!), despite all evidence to the contrary. Besides this, they were warned by an Algerian agent that Qatada was raising money for terror groups overseas, yet did not act. Qatada himself has said that MI5 offered him passage out the UK in 2002, but he did not accept the offer. He is supposed to have "mysteriously" disappeared from public view in 2002, yet a Guantanamo bay detainee (also an MI5 informer) says that MI5 were hiding Qatada in a flat in Bermondsey, South London.
All told, it looks as if our intelligence community has a "hot potato" in Abu Qatada. If he is deported, he will undoubtedly tell his version of how MI5 tried to use him as an agent - although it looks as if he was using them.

OFSTED and Disaster Capitalism

The recent announcement by the new head of OFSTED, Sir Michael Wishaw, whereby he wishes to change the "satisfactory" category of school and lesson performance descriptors to "requires improvement" - SEE HERE- while apparently showing concern for improvement in overall educational standards, is the thin end of a very thick wedge. Other measures are the recent announcements by Michael Gove that he is speeding up the process of dismissing so-called incompetent teachers and today's announcement that he wants to see greater sponsorship of schools by private firms. Barclays Bank have announced an interest in this today.
All this is intended to give the public the impression that this government are dealing effectively with the "problem" of education. There is a popular misconception, carefully fostered in the right-wing press (The "Daily Mail" is an obvious example) that schools are full of lazy, incompetent teachers who have been getting away with it for many years. It really should be asked - if this be the case, why has OFSTED not noticed it before, as they have been in existence for the better part of two decades? Could it be that OFSTED inspectors are lazy and incompetent? Surely not!
If there are so many incompetent teachers, how did they become teachers in the first place, I wonder? Contrary to what might be thought, it is not that easy to qualify as a teacher, and student teachers DO get failed. I have seen this happen a number of times in my career. Besides which, if it is so easy to be lazy and incompetent and still pass your teaching course - why is there such a high drop-out rate? Or should OFSTED be inspecting teacher training establishments more strictly? Ah, the beat goes on...
The plain fact is - despite denials - that the new measures to be applied to teachers will make it easier for Heads to get rid of staff that they do not want. The most obvious category of teachers to feel the lash will be older teachers of (about) 45+. As one Head observed to me: "Older members of staff take more time off than younger members" - and he is not alone in thinking this. Besides this, Heads, Deputies and Senior teachers are not immune to bringing their personal likes and dislikes to lesson observations and, as the old saying goes: "Ill will never said well". It is only too easy for ill-disposed lesson observers to downgrade an observed teacher - and, although I have to be discreet, I know that this happens. It is not unknown for Heads and senior teachers to pressurise staff in other ways also - I have even been told of a Head who gave a male teacher a class in which there was a child with a history of making allegations against men! The new rule, whereby a Head can walk in on lessons as many times as he or she wishes - unannounced - is a ready made tool for harassment.
As for the change from "Satisfactory" to "Requires Improvement", this is all a matter of semantics. After all -does not a "Good" teacher require improvement?And who gave OFSTED the right to change the meanings of words? I have actually heard an OFSTED speaker describe "Good" as the new "Satisfactory" - very enlightening!

If all this is intended to improve education, then the general public needs to know that this government has some strange ways of going about it. For instance, a head now has the power to put any person deemed suitable in front of a class. Cuts in school budgets have meant that schools avoid employing supply teachers as much as they can. Instead, Heads can put Teaching Assistants or anyone with Police clearance, such as volunteer parent helpers, in charge of a class. One West London secondary school head has been known to use school security staff - ex bouncers - to cover lessons in place of absent staff. Academy Schools have the right to employ staff who have no teaching qualifications whatsoever. And this - allowing children to be taught by unqualified staff - is supposed to be an improvement.
So - what's really going on? Well, the unions are right, in my view, when they say that this government wants to destroy state education. Hence the link  with "Disaster Capitalism". "The Shock Doctrine", by Naomi Klein, outlines this theory. In a nutshell, it states that monetarist economists (such as the late Milton Friedman), exploit disasters such as wars, famine, etc, to implement their desire to cut back on the public sector and let the market take over all the former state functions.
It hardly needs to be pointed out that this bears a close resemblance to the education policies of the present government. In fact, Michael Gove is said to be an admirer of Mrs Thatcher, who, in turn, was a great admirer of monetarism. By attacking the state sector financially, and making the lot of the average state teacher more insecure and onerous, the government is exploiting the present economic crisis. The aim, as Union leaders have spelt out, is to "encourage" more schools to seek academy status, and thus money from firms such as Barclays. The monetarists in the government will have their way, making education" less of a burden" on the taxpayer - and hard luck for anyone who suffers because of this.
Surprisingly, there is no mention of making cuts in OFSTED. Schools, hospitals, day care centres,police,public libraries and recreational facilities suffer cuts and closure, but OFSTED carries on without penalty.
Isn't it time we asked why?

2011 - No Need to Say Goodbye?

Well, it doesn't take much to show why we should be glad to see the back of 2011. We know it all already: the godawful financial situation which has devastated our economies, the Euro crisis, the summer riots, the cuts in public spending and the upward creep of the unemployment figures.Anyone who has followed this blog through the past year will see that there has been ample comment on all these issues, by myself and others.Summing it all up has challenged experienced media pundits. For me, perhaps the best summation of 2011 comes in this phrase I found in a Latin phrase dictionary:
"Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit"
I won't translate that, as Google does a better job. However, I truly believe that there were signs of hope in all the last year's deluge of misfortunes. There was the marvellous "Arab Spring" in Tunisia and Egypt and, albeit with NATO help, the end of "The Mad Colonel" in Libya. During, and after, the dark days of the summer riots, ordinary people stood up against the tide of criminality: the Kurdish Community of east London who rallied to defend their businesses; the Sikh community of Southall, who mobilised to defend their Gurudwaras and neighbourhoods (no rioters came anywhere near), and the "clean-up" army of citizens who turned out to clean up their riot-hit neighbourhoods. There was also the great Trade Union march against the public spending cuts back in the spring. I took part in it, and sensed how powerful the people united can be. "dum vita est spes est" ( I won't translate that either).
So, for my New Year's message (Let all take notice!), I'd like to wish everyone what I wished for you last year, which is a massive slice of good luck. We needed it a year ago, and we need it now. And let's not forget that, while we may be weak separately, who knows what we can achieve if we act together - "viribus unitis"?
BTW - My New year's resolution is to put my Latin phrase dictionary back on the shelf. "Consummatum est!"

Santa Claus and Animal Cruelty

First, I would like to thank RedNev for standing in for me during my absence. He has hit on some sore political points which will be revisited in the coming year - unfortunately.
Moving on, I wish to revisit my previous criticism of that undeservedly popular figure, Santa Claus. As I pointed out last year, he is in flagrant breach of Health and Safety legislation in this country and should be held to account for it. If this was not bad enough, there is also the matter of his cruelty to animals. It is no secret that his Christmas workload is a heavy one; he has many premises to visit and very little time to do it. However, this does not entitle him to inflict excessive work demands upon dumb animals - i.e. his reindeer. No information is available for how well the reindeer cope with their incredible task on Christmas Eve, but it surely contradicts all Health and Safety legislation regarding animals in the workplace. Why the RSPCA has never taken action is beyond me.
This year, however, something needs to be done. When Santa Claus enters British air space on Christmas Eve, he should be arrested and brought before a magistrate as soon as possible. I suppose that RedNev will say that this will delay Christmas for many children, but the law is the law. There is no place for sentimental excuses. In any case. Santa will probably be let off with a caution and then be free to carry on distributing presents.
MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYBODY!

More Scottish Nationalist confusion

Strikers marching down
the Royal Mile in Edinburgh

One of Britain's most muddled political parties, the Scottish Nationalists, are giving out mixed messages again:  they say that after independence, they want to form closer links with Scandinavia - there is a report in the Independent here.  This is despite their long-standing policy to retain both the monarchy and the pound.  Either you go for full-blown independence from the rest of the UK, sever all constitutional and monetary links and create partnerships and alliances elsewhere, or you go for the half-way house favoured by the SNP.  The problem with the latter is you'll  be seen as a semi-detached part of the UK and therefore lack the credibility and clout to create much of a mark on the international scene.  There are, of course, other countries which have kept the British monarchy, but they are completely independent in all other respects, including their currencies and economies.

I am dubious about nationalism anyway, as it's a form of politics derived from geography.  The Scots are not a single people:  ethnically they are derived from Picts, Gaels, Norse, Britons (akin to the Welsh), Anglo-Saxons and (after 1066) English.  I would argue that, even today, most Glaswegians have more in common with people in Manchester or Leeds than they do with inhabitants of the Highlands and Islands.  The main unifying feature of the Scottish people collectively is that they live north of the border with England. 

Ordinary Scottish people face the same problems and - I would assert - the same enemies as their English counterparts.  We have all been affected by the recession caused by the greed and incompetence of big bankers; we are all suffering from the effects of minuscule pay rises or pay freezes while inflation is out of control; job losses are devastating communities in England and Wales as well as Scotland.  We are all affected by an economy that squanders scant resources on nuclear weapons and fighting wars for incomprehensible causes while cutting back on essential public services.

This situation isn't new, but the current recession reinforces the fact that that ordinary Britons have more that unites than divides them across national borders.  It demonstrates that, when it comes down to it, we're all cogs in a machine that exists to preserve the privileges of the rich, with their seven-figure bonuses and 50% pay rises.  From this perspective, the border marked by the River Tweed seems much less relevant than the divisions between people who are flourishing in this recession and people who who are suffering.  Identical strikes, marches and rallies took place in towns and cities in England, Scotland and Wales (in alphabetical order) on 30th November to challenge the attacks on the pensions of ordinary working people in the public sector; which nation you lived in was utterly irrelevant on that day.

The SNP's response as as muddled as ever:  the strikes were wrong because the public should have access to services, but they supported the attacks on the UK government's pensions reforms "because the short-term cash grab by the UK government has undermined the opportunity to secure agreement aimed at affordable and sustainable public sector pensions" said John Swinney of the SNP, clearly just using the dispute to have a pop at the Westminster government.  Sorry, John, stop sitting on the fence and recognise that in this situation you can't have opposition without strikes, because negotiations with an outcome predetermined by the London government could never go anywhere.  Unions know that verbal protests and humble petitions in situations like this simply won't work as they've tried them before.  I write this as a former trade union officer for 24 years who spent much of that time as a negotiator:  I can recognise official time-wasting and delaying tactics a mile off, and that is what the unions were facing here.  But the champions of the Scottish people came out sounding just like the Labour Party, their main opponents in Scotland.  When political opponents sound the same, as a voter you are deprived of choice, which is especially odd in Scotland, seeing that the SNP want to create a separate state on the basis of inherent Scottish difference.

The SNP stands for the idea of Scotland based solely on geography.  They seems incapable, just like the main Westminster parties, of discerning the injustices being heaped on ordinary people, wherever they live in the UK.  Except for their desire to make the border between England and Scotland into a national frontier, they are really little different from the London politicians they affect to despise.

I shall write another post shortly on the SNP's confused approach to alcohol control.

Striking for gold-plated peanuts

Pinched from Private Eye

It was announced today that unemployment for young people aged 18 - 24 rose to 1.02 million in the 3 months to September. The total number of unemployed people is the highest since 1994 and the number of women out of work increased by 43,000 to 1.09 million, the highest level since February 1988. It's usually the case that as unemployment rises, industrial action drops, and it's infuriating the government that that pattern doesn't seem to be happening now. Instead the country is facing the possibility of the biggest strike for 80 years on 30 November. How come?

As you'll know, one of the main reasons for the strikes is the attack on public sector pensions, which even BBC journalists have been heard to describe as gold-plated. Employees will be required to work longer and pay more to get less. Is this an injustice? Union members feel angry that the government has reneged on its deal with them, that they are not getting what they have been promised, in some cases over decades. It seems quite reasonable to be angry over broken promises, especially ones with such wide-ranging consequences that will affect their standard of living for the rest of their lives. That sense of injustice must not be underestimated.

To try to get the general public on board, politicians talk about the excellent pensions public sector workers will still have after the changes, especially when compared to the private sector. Let's deal with the private sector first:

Much of the private sector did once have better pensions, often based on final salaries, until the 1980s, until politicians stuck their noses in. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Lawson, noted that in the financial boom of the 1980s, pension funds had large surpluses, so he allowed employers to have contribution holidays, which many took up, in some cases not contributing for years on end. Some like Robert Maxwell even stole from their pension funds. That's an extreme example of a view of pension funds as dead money that would be better used for the business, but those who only stopped paying into (as opposed to stealing from) pension funds clearly had the same mindset. What Lawson and the employers chose to forget is something we are all told when we take out an investment - that they can go down as well as up. And so it came to pass - they went down.

The next body blow to private pensions was one of Gordon Brown's first decisions as Chancellor of the Exchequer, which was to impose tax upon pension funds which had been previously exempt. These two measures by chancellors from both major parties, accompanied by an economic downturn in which investments weren't performing so well tipped many funds from prosperity in the early 1980s to an inability to meet their responsibilities by the mid-1990s onwards. All caused by a combination of both parties viewing pension funds as cash cows, either for the employers or for the Treasury, and many employers happily along for the ride.

One notable exception from the crisis in private sector pensions is the provision for chief executives and company directors, who looked after themselves by happily awarding each other massive pensions and large pay-offs from final salary schemes that somehow survived the pension crisis, while slashing the schemes for their own workforces. Fred Goodwin's final salary pension from the Royal Bank of Scotland pays him in six days what a retired executive officer (junior manager) in the civil service would receive in a year, providing s/he had completed 40 full years service (no career breaks or periods of part-time working). In contrast, Fred got his pension after 26 years in the industry between qualifying as an accountant in 1983 and retiring at 50 in 2009.

"Excellent public sector pensions."  Having messed up private sector pensions for the workforce (except for the top executives), politicians then turned their attention to public sector pensions. Gold-plated? Judge for yourself: the average civil service pension is £4800 a year, and its local government equivalent is even less. This is what the government wants to cut, and it's hardly surprising that public sector workers oppose having to work longer and pay more to get even less.  Yes, there are some in the public sector who get big pensions: politicians for starters, but also top civil servants (the Sir Humphreys) and local authority chief executives, but these represent a tiny proportion of the public sector and are in no way typical.

Some of the public, taken in by the propaganda about gold-plated pensions, believe that it's about time the feather-bedded public sector faced the real world like the private sector. If you apply that argument across the board, then logically you'd end up in a situation in which no one would get a pension more than the smallest in the private sector, which wouldn't benefit anybody. There is no doubt that private sector pensions have been treated disgracefully by governments and employers, but how does doing the same to the public sector help anyone? Some public sector staff are saying that if these changes are implemented, they will have to drop out of the pension scheme as they can't afford the extra contributions. If this happens, all we'll be doing is setting up a demographic time bomb whereby millions more from both the public and private sectors are forced to rely on state benefits in retirement. In what way is this "living in the real world" and planning sensibly for the nation's future?

Handing Over the Reins

Well, the strain of writing this blog is starting to tell! After continuous outpourings of wit and wisdom, I shall be taking a well-deserved break in the Far East for about a month. Regular readers of this blog will be reassured to know that my place will be taken by none other than RedNev, who I now appoint as Deputy Blogmeister. Nev will continue to run this blog in the spirit of our inspirational forbear, Major John Cartwright.
I shall return in December.
Good luck, Nev!
Good luck, all bloggers!
PS. I was only joking about the strain of writing.

Burning Poppies and the Blame Game

You may remember that last year, at this time, a small group of Islamists called "Muslims Against Crusaders" publicly burned poppies on Remembrance Day. Their leader, Anjem Choudhary, was fined £50. He was on TV last Sunday, announcing his intention to do the same thing this year. As might be expected, this planned gesture has been condemned by just about everybody - not least Muslims.
What I find of interest is that some pundits of the right cannot resist the temptation not just to attack this handful of Jihadi fanatics, but also to attack the Left.One such pundit is one Abhijit Pandya, whose views can be read HERE. Mr Pandya is entitled to his views, and makes some valid points, but he goes seriously off beam when he starts finding culprits for the rise of Islamic militancy. As he sees it, it's all the fault of the Reds:
"In essence, my thesis is as follows: Choudhary and his gang of poppy burners are much more a product (of?) anti-nation thinking that is fundamental to the left's critique of the world than to multiculturalism or failures of immigrant assimilation policy".
Mr Pandya does not sem to inhabit the same planet as the rest of us - either that or he is aiming to mislead people. Islamists loathe the Left (Marxist or non-Marxist) as much as they hate liberal democracy. I've discussed this in previous posts, but it still needs to be pointed out that both Britain and the USA found the Muslim Mujaheddin willing proxies in their battle against the USSR - in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Yet again, I find myself recommending readers to read "Secret Affairs" by Mark Curtis, which details how the UK and USA have worked hand-in-glove with Radical Islam over decades. Might not the present high profile of Jihadi militancy be something to do with encouragement from British governments - Tory and Labour? Don't watch this space. Instead, take a look at the picture below - it shows Muslim volunteers for the Waffen SS. The units to which these men belonged gained a reputation for savagery and fanaticism that rivalled that of their ethnic German counterparts. I would argue that Anjem Choudhary and his band of lunatics have more in common with these men than anyone on the Left. Nor did these SS men represent Islam as a whole - on Remembrance day, let's think of those who gave their lives to defend Britain from Fascism - including many thousands of Muslims from Commonwealth countries. Many Muslims fought and died on our side against Nazism - and Islamofascists like Choudhary, and his spiritual brethren in the Waffen SS.

The Slow Death of Local Radio

It made no headlines, but last night on "Folkscene", which is a folk music programme on BBC Radio Merseyside, you would have heard me talking to the host, Geoff Speed, about the cd "The End of the Line". Not heard of it? Well, it's the 9th album of songs and poems written by me, and recorded by various artists. I'm pleased to report that the programme went well, as have the sales of the album - sold out, in fact. In one way, however, it was rather a sad occasion. The BBC, because of cuts to its budget, is planning to axe all its local radio specialist music programmes across the country. When my collaborators and I make album 10, we will have very few folk music radio programmes available that will be prepared to play our cd. And, of course, it won't be just folk music programmes whch will be affected - Blues, Jazz, Country and Gospel music lovers will all see their local programmes disappear. But why?
   Well, the obvious answer is that it is a cost cutting exercise necessary to save public money. The problem that I have with this view is that no figures of how much money will be saved have been published. Besides which, I happen to know that most presenters of such programmes get a very low rate of pay. Many presenters record their programmes at home, and rarely ever set foot in the BBC studios. There could be other factors at work, but I'll discuss those later.
There is no doubt, surely, that the loss of these programmes will deprive local music fans of information about what is happening in their local area. Not only this, but local acts will not get opportunities to be heard by a wider audience. Local radio, in other words, will become a lot less "local", as it will cease to reflect their area's music scene. It may be said that BBC Radio 2 has specialist music programmes, but I know from long experience how difficult it is to get played on national radio - once in 18 years, in my case. The Paul Joneses, Mike Hardings and Bob Harrises of this world are only interested in nationally established artists. It will be left to local commercial radio to pick up the slack - but only if it is profitable. Many commercial stations are not interested.
But what of those "other factors"? Well, I don't claim that there is a conspiracy at work, but both the musical and political establishments stand to gain from the shedding of specialist music programmes by the BBC. Instead, we will have more of the same old stuff that we already get on daytime BBC Radio 2 - and yet more of the manufactured hits from X factor winners and their ilk. Simon Cowell, Louis Walsh, etc, will be laughing all the way to the bank.
As for the political establishment, they stand to gain by shutting down an outlet for dissent. This is not to say that all Blues, Folk, Country artists are politically vocal, but the fact is that these types of music - especially Folk - have always included a radical, politically critical streak. If you listen to most music played on radio nowadays, you'd be hard put to find anything remotely critical politically - it's escapist, if anything. And with the axing of specialist music programmes from local radio, it will become even more escapist. Stalin would undoubtedly have approved.
  

OFSTED and a Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On

Well, those ever-vigilant chaps at OFSTED are at it again - talking about the need for a shake-up in education. It always amuses me to hear this, as they have been saying the same thing for the better part of two decades. As a veteran of numerous inspections by both OFSTED and Her Majesty's Inspectors for Education (HMI), it's my belief that schools, to borrow Elvis' phrase,are "all shook up" already. So what was wrong with all the many thousands of school inspections that OFSTED have carried out in the past?There are two answers to this question - one that will be acceptable to OFSTED and one that definitely won't be - I shall provide the latter.
Nick Glibb, the Schools Minister, says that OFSTED will be concentrating upon things "which really matter". No-one seems to have asked him what they've been doing so far - still less has he asked them. The BBC article states:
"Overall, these new ground rules for inspections show a shift in emphasis from wellbeing issues, such as safeguarding children, community cohesion and healthy living, towards core academic standards."
This gives the impression that OFSTED inspectors have ignored teaching standards and gone around checking alarm systems and locks. This is simply not true, as anyone who works in a school will tell you. Anyway, the OFSTED supremo, Miriam Rosen, declares:
"Inspectors will spend even more time in the classroom observing teaching and learning, with a renewed emphasis on reading and literacy skills."
Parents reading this will no doubt be reassured - but lessons are observed anyway. In my first such inspection, I was observed for six lessons, and at that time, I was not unique in this. Some teachers I know had far more. All this happened when inspections lasted a whole week. The length of inspections has been reduced since, but, in my experience, the number of classroom visits pro rata has not dropped. All this talk of "shake-ups" is happening for another reason - one to which I have alluded before.
It is no coincidence that Nick Glibb and Miriam Rosen are new to their jobs, and want to make names for themselves. UK education is, as I have said before, a political football which is always being kicked around as in need of reform. It never seems to occur to people like Glibb and Rosen that things might improve if there were less shake-ups and schools could get on with teaching.
And there is something else about OFSTED that the general public does not know. This organisation has a habit of moving the goal posts when it comes to assessing the quality of teaching and learning. OFSTED has four "level descriptors": Outstanding, Good, Satisfactory and Inadequate. Well, lessons which may have been classed as Satisfactory by an inspector in one year, can be graded UNsatisfactory after the passage of time. I have been present at a meeting when an adviser has shown a video of a lesson graded Satisfactory in 2000, "but (said the cheery adviser) it wouldn't be now!". At another such meeting, we were told that the OFSTED grade of "Good" is now the new "Satisfactory". OFSTED, it seems, has the power to change the meanings of words, but we were not told what "Satisfactory" now meant. Imagine what would happen if the standards of bricklaying changed in the same way - would a wall that was "satisfactory" in 2005 have to be knocked down in 2011?
So why do they change the standards for lesson assessment? Well, they won't admit this - but I think that OFSTED is being governed by what Durkheim called "the dialectic of ends and means", whereby a means to an end becomes an end in itself. OFSTED inspectors enjoy fat fees and generous expenses.Anyone doubting this should look in  the school car park during an OFSTED inspection - the inspection team always arrive in a fleet of new cars. To justify its existence, OFSTED needs to keep repeating the need for shaking up education. One question - at a time of stringent budget cuts in the public sector, is it not time to shake OFSTED (and Mr Glibb) by the scruff of the neck?