The First Day on the Somme - Remembrance and Revision

Back in the 1980s, I bought and read "The First Day on the Somme", by Martin Middlebrook. I found it such a distressing experience that I could not bring myself to read it again, and it stayed on my bookshelf for more years than I care to remember. However, as the 100th anniversary of the start of the Somme battle approaches on July 1st, I am reading it again, and finding it as moving as I did so long ago.
The facts of the battle are indisputable. The attack on July 1st, 1916, saw the worst day in British military history. An intense week-long artillery bombardment had failed to destroy the German barbed wire in front of most of the German front line. Most British troops were ordered to walk toward the enemy trenches and were cut down by machine gun and artillery fire. By the end of that terrible day, 57, 940 British soldiers were casualties, of which 19, 240 were dead. Half of these men were killed and wounded in the first hour of the battle. One man fell for about every 18 inches of the attack frontage. The Battle of the Somme continued for 141 days, ending on November 18. On average, 893 men died on each of those days; the total of Allied and German casualties came to about 1000 000. The Allied front line advanced five miles. By contrast, the British military serving in Afghanistan from 1st January, 2006, to 31st March, 2013 suffered 454 dead and 2, 116 wounded and injured.
Statistics are cold and impersonal; Middlebrook's book brings us the voices, thoughts and feelings of the men who fought and died on that day. A recent Daily Mail article, which features many of the men mentioned in Middlebrook's book, gives one such example: At 0400 hours...
"Many soldiers start writing last letters home. Second Lieutenant Ronald Grundy, 19, of the Middlesex Regiment tells his mother, ‘Please always look on the bright side. Only 5 per cent of the army is killed.’ He will be shot in the throat by a sniper at 7.30am (H-Hour)".
There are many such poignant moments in Middlebrook's book taken from the duration of the battle, but perhaps the most affecting statements are those of some of the men who survived July 1st, 1916 and, luckily, the rest of the war. Here are a couple:
"It was pure bloody murder. Douglas Haig should have been hung, drawn and quartered for what he did on the Somme. The cream of British manhood was shattered in less than six hours" - Pte. P. Smith, Border Regiment.
"More than anything I hated to see war-crippled men standing in the gutter selling matches...I'd never fight for my country again" - Pte. F. W. A. Turner, Sherwood Foresters.
The post-war bitterness of these survivors is understandable - and I have every sympathy for it. However, we have to take into account the fact that not all ex-servicemen from WW1 felt this way. Lyn MacDonald, who wrote some excellent books about the conflict, said in one of her prefaces that many veterans felt hurt by the view of them as dupes and donkeys - although some agreed with it. Nevertheless, the slaughter of the Somme's first day has become emblematic of the prevailing view of  WW1, depicted and expressed in "Oh, What a Lovely War", the poetry of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon and "Blackadder Goes Forth".
I have a lot of sympathy with this view, but am concerned that it has become, for many people, an unchallengeable orthodoxy. Two historians who have expressed an alternative point of view, Professor Gary Sheffield and Dan Snow, have been greeted with near-violent hostility. So what have they said? Sheffield wrote a book called "Forgotten Victory", in which he advanced the view that the Somme was part of a necessary "learning curve" that the British Army went through to adapt to modern warfare, and led on to the "year of victories" in 1918. Snow simply pointed out that the British generals, like those of all other armies, were plagued by poor communications and needed to be located in a safe central position. He also, in 2014, debunked what he saw as 10 myths about WW1 (see link). For this, he received a good deal of abuse (and some vigorous criticism, bordering on invective). While Private Smith, quoted above, might have had no respect for Douglas Haig, the fact remains that when Haig died, in 1928, 12000 ex-servicemen travelled to Scotland to line the route of his funeral procession. The writing of history should never become the preserve of emotionalism and intolerance.
And yet - on Friday, when we remember the sacrifice of so many who died on the Somme, we must remember it as the human tragedy that it was. As my contribution to the commemoration of the Somme battle, I have donated a short poem by me on the back of a British Legion laminated poppy that will be planted among others along the route to the Thiepval Visitors' Centre, on the old Somme battlefield. I have 19, 240 good reasons for doing so. Here is the poem:

Lines Written for the Somme Battle Centenary

On the fire step,

First of July.

Birds soar,

 Bullets fly.

Men fall,

Widows cry.

Grief and glory

Never die.

Cameron's Demise and a Victory for the Racist Right

I could not believe the news this morning. For me, a "Leave" vote was out of the question, and it just couldn't happen. Well, it happened, and I have had to adjust to the sight of the triumphalist rantings of Brexit politicians, all of whom are right of centre. What a crew! There is the effervescently gloating Nigel Farrage, as well as Boris Johnson, Chris Grayling, and other stars in the Tory firmament. Interestingly, all the smiling faces are either UKIP or Tory pundits - I have seen no Labour Brexiters as of yet. This political imbalance, as well as the fact that Donald Trump and Marine Le Pen have welcomed the referendum result, is highly significant.
As for David Cameron's falling on his sword, he reminds me of the "upper class twit of the year" in the famous Monty Python sketch who ran himself over with his own car. As Owen Jones says in today's "Guardian": "He called a referendum not because he thought it was in the national interest, but because it was useful to manage internal Conservative divisions. The referendum was inevitably framed as a struggle between two Conservative factions."
Cameron miscalculated disastrously, for himself as well as those of us who did not buy into the Brexit side's "case". I would have been delighted to see him leave his post after losing a General Election, but I am not happy to watch his departure from office in this way. As I said yesterday (it seems a different world today!),he should have shown some personal steel (and common sense) in resisting the pressure to hold the referendum in the first place. In actual fact, the referendum result is not legally binding, and if Cameron had been braver, he could have disregarded it. As Haroon Siddique has written:
"The simple answer to the question as to whether the EU referendum is legally binding is “no”. In theory, in the event of a vote to leave the EU, David Cameron, who opposes Brexit, could decide to ignore the will of the people and put the question to MPs banking on a majority deciding to remain.
This is because parliament is sovereign and referendums are generally not binding in the UK."
Some hopes of that...
So, where are we now? Well, we all know about the run on the pound, the unrest in the Stock market and rumblings of nationalist discontent in Scotland and Northern Ireland. We know, also, that  Nigel Farage has disowned a pledge to spend £350 million of European Union cash on the NHS after Brexit. As Jon Stone says in "The Independent":
"Nigel Farage has disowned a pledge to spend £350 million of European Union cash on the NHS after Brexit."
In fact, "Barrage" denies having made such a pledge. For a man who has condemned so many other politicians for being slippery and evasive, Nigel seems to have learned from them.
Like I said yesterday, so long ago now, this referendum has created divisions across the political spectrum. The result has caused turmoil in our political life, having already led to the removal of David Cameron from office, and the possible sacking of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party. But of particular concern, to me at least, is the nasty racist undercurrent that has accompanied the Brexit campaign. As one young Spanish lady said in a TV debate to Michael Gove:
"You are talking about us (EC migrants) as if we are enemies. I love this country".
Now, I accept that not all Brexit supporters are racists, but, as others besides me have pointed out, all racists are Brexit supporters. London voted to Remain yesterday, and some media pundits have given the misleading impression that the rest of the country voted to Leave. This is not the case, as many constituencies elsewhere in Britain (all in Scotland) voted Remain. The problem is that there was not enough of them. In many areas, including traditional Labour Party areas, the vote appears to have been swung by an antipathy to immigration. I do not believe that Nigel Farrage and his ilk are all racists, but they have shown that they know how to manipulate the racist vote. Brexit did particularly well in some depressed and disadvantaged areas, where there is a feeling that the native population (whoever they are) have been passed over in favour of immigrants.
This is a Europe-wide problem, and the Europe's far-right parties have been delighted at the victory for the Leave campaign. French National Front (FN) leader, Marine Le Pen tweeted: “Victory for freedom! As I have been asking for years, now we need to have the same referendum in France and in the countries of the EU.”
Presumably, the French equivalent will be called "Frexit". The FN's equivalents in the Netherlands, Germany (Alternative für Deutschland), the Sweden Democrats, the Danish People's Party and the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn in Greece are equally jubilant. The dogs of Europe are beginning to bark in unison. Donald Trump, who arrived in the UK today, the Daily Telegraph says:
 "Asked if he took heart from the result for his own campaign, Mr Trump said: “We're doing very well in the United States and essentially the same thing is happening in the United States."
We have been warned. Labour politicians who were misguided enough to support the Leave campaign should take note: they have helped the cause of the Right, in the USA, Europe and Britain immeasurably.
I conclude by looking at the impact this result is having upon the people that the Brexit campaign has targeted: EU migrants. This morning on TV, I saw a Polish couple who run a shop in Peterborough looking distinctly apprehensive about the fact that the town where they had lived for so long had voted decisively for Brexit. And not just EC migrants have cause to feel apprehensive. Joseph Harker, in the Guardian, says:
"Yes, the immigration issue has been about numbers coming from eastern Europe, and about people who don’t have English as their first language. But as anyone with a black or brown face knows, our nationality is regularly questioned, even when we’re born here: we are spoken about in phrases such as “immigrant communities”, and immigration stories carried in the media are commonly accompanied by images of black or Asian people, implicitly assuming they arrived from overseas."
The Brexit campaign, then, has potentially turned the clock back several decades to the days when Enoch Powell was the darling of the racist right, and the National Front (NF) appeared on our streets. That is David Cameron's final contribution to British politics. Thanks, Dave.

Today, I Voted Remain...

Well, yes, I did vote to remain in the EU, but not for the reasons many people are giving for voting either way. I voted Remain, because it is my view that David Cameron should not have called this referendum in the first place. Had he not allowed it, we would be remaining in the EU, and avoided one of the most divisive events in British political history. I believed this referendum to have been a bad idea from the very beginning, and it got worse.
In the first place, I think it has seriously undermined Cameron's own position, and the office he holds. My view is that, as elected leader of this country, and someone who supports the EU, he should have been tough enough to stick to that position, and not hazarded his future (and ours) by going to referendum. He is Prime Minister and believes passionately that the UK belongs in Europe. Why, then, has he risked losing the vote? In my opinion, he has made himself look weak, and, if the country votes Leave, his career in politics is finished.
Referenda, to use one choice of plural, are not always progressive and beneficial for society. They are used frequently in Switzerland (180 in the last 20 years, 9 this year alone), and have produced some very strange results in the past. Not until 1971 were women given the vote; not until the same year could women hold seats in parliament. Only in 2004 did a referendum grant Swiss women paid maternity leave. The Leave campaign in the present referendum campaign has seen some ugly racist and nationalist vapourings, which has done them little credit in the eyes of all but the most bigoted.
I think, though, that the most damaging aspect of the referendum campaign has been the divisions it has created between the supporters of either camp in all political parties. Even the extreme Left has been divided on this issue. The ill-will between Remainers and Leavers, sometimes between members of the cabinet, has been astonishing at times. To give but one example from many, Amber Rudd, the Energy Secretary, said of her fellow-Tory, Boris Johnson, in an ITV debate:“As for Boris, he is the life and soul of the party but he’s not the man you want driving you home at the end of the evening,”
Such invective can only leave a legacy of ill-will which could last well into the future. Instead of a house divided, we might see every political party (except the LibDems) divided into sections that have bad feelings towards each other, poisoning our political life. When the results of this referendum are declared tomorrow morning, a lot of people are going to be very unhappy, all of which adds up to an unhealthy legacy for David Cameron's misconceived referendum idea.

Terrorism, Mental Health Homicide and the Murder of Jo Cox

In 1939, W. H. Auden penned these lines in one of his poems:
"In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark".
Well, as we know, one of those dogs came out of the dark yesterday and took the life of Jo Cox, M.P. We, as a nation, are reeling from this; the feelings of Jo Cox's family are unimaginable. All flags are at half-mast, and tributes are ringing out in the media. At the moment, I am listening to the Jeremy Vine programme on Radio 2, and a listener has just emailed asking:
"...what has happened to our beautiful, civilized country?"
That person's feelings are understandable, but, sadly, Jo Cox's horrible murder is not without precedent in this country or any other. As regular readers of this blog know, terrorism and mental health homicide are frequent themes of mine (some would say obsessions). The killing of Jo Cox brings these two themes together, and I think we need to look a little more closely at them here.
As for precedents, there have been a number of murders of serving M.P.s. Wikipedia lists eight, beginning with the assassination of the Prime Minister, Spencer Perceval, in 1812, and now updated with the killing of Jo Cox. Six of the MPs murdered were killed by Irish republicans, but Percival and Jo Cox were slain by people with a history of mental illness. There have, of course, been a number of murder attempts by political and religious extremists against M.P.s in recent years. There was the stabbing of Steven Timms, M.P. by the Islamist fanatic Roshonara Chaudry, which I wrote about in 2010. 2000 saw the murder attempt by a  mental health patient, Robert Ashman, upon Nigel Jones, M.P. (now Lord Jones), in which Jones' aide Andrew Pennington was killed by Ashman, who was wielding a sword. Incredibly, but in line with everything I have featured on Rhymes and Routes about released mental health patients, Ashman was released in 2008.
It hardly needs to be pointed out that terrorist organisations find people with mental health problems very useful. In 1975, members of the German Red Army Faction (aka "The Baader-Meinhof Gang") took over the West German Embassy in Stockholm, Sweden. This group, grandiosely  named "The Holger Mains Commando", was composed mainly of violent mental health patients. After the occupation of Iraq, Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the predecessor of Daesh, used mentally handicapped individuals as suicide bombers, and Daesh has continued the practice. Here in the UK in 2008, Nicky Reilly, a mentally handicapped young man with the mental age of ten, tried to blow himself up in an Exeter restaurant after being radicalized online.
Thomas Mair, the man arrested for the murder of Jo Cox, appears to tick both boxes - political extremism and mental health problems. He seems to have had links with far-right organisations in the USA and South Africa. During the attack on Jo Cox, he is alleged to have shouted "Put Britain first", or "Britain First", it is not clear which. Unsurprisingly, Britain First, the extreme right wing  group has denied all connection with Thomas Mair. It may even be true.
Mair also seems to have had mental health issues in the past, but, to be fair to the mental health mandarins, he does not appear to have exhibited any dangerous traits. One of his neighbours has said:  "He is just a quiet bloke who keeps himself to himself. "He is very helpful and he helps local people with their gardens. There is one neighbour who is a bit frail and he keeps her garden tidy. He has helped me cut my hedge a couple of times." In 2011, Mair volunteered to work as a groundsman at the nearby Oakwell Hall County Park, which he claimed helped ease his mental health problems, according to the Daily Telegraph.
It is my view that Mair was not an openly active member of any extreme right-wing party. Rather, I believe that we will learn how he nurtured his extremism in secret for years, watching neo-Nazi videos on the internet, as well as reading terrorist weapons manuals and extremist literature in preparation for an unspecified atrocity. One such book might well be "The Turner Diaries" by William Luther Pierce, written in 1978. Given the fact that Pierce was the founder of the neo-Nazi Nationalist Alliance in the USA, and the fact that Mair has been found to be in possession of National Alliance reading matter, it is more than likely he has read "The Turner Diaries".
This evil book, which tells the story of a white supremacist psychopath, Earl Turner, who launches a terror campaign against the US Federal Government, liquidating all non-white groups and launching a nuclear strike against Israel, has proven to be an inspirational text for aspiring fascist terrorists such as Timothy McVeigh, who was convicted of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. McVeigh was found to have pages of this book on him when arrested. Another neo-Nazi seeking to emulate Earl Turner's example was David Copeland, who killed three people in a bombing campaign against London's black, Asian and gay communities in April 1999, and quoted from The Turner Diaries while being interviewed by police. Unbelievably, this hate-filled book is on sale at Amazon.
In the nightmare of the dark, the dogs of political and religious terrorism are still barking, and we will be very lucky indeed if they never bite again. There's nothing like hoping against hope, but that is what we do. We must at least ensure that our M.P.s are valued more, and provided with greater protection. This Fascist, Mair - for that is what I believe him to be - must not be allowed to undermine our democracy.
To conclude, I know I speak for all contributors and readers of Rhymes and Routes in sending our deepest condolences to Jo Cox's family, friends and constituents, should they happen upon this post. For a number of years, there has been a lot of cynicism directed at M.P.s, but Jo Cox was an outstanding young politician, who should have gone on to a fine career. For her husband and children, an empty space has appeared in their lives. Brendan Cox, her husband, has said:  "Today is the beginning of a new chapter in our lives. More difficult, more painful, less joyful, less full of love."
I wish them peace, and time to grieve.

The UK, Corruption and the Peaky Blinders

Corruption, and those who practise it, is in the news at the moment. This is the best place for the problem, as the practitioners do not like scrutiny. It is remarkable, however, that when corruption is discussed, it is at a national level. David Cameron, when he made his famous gaffe, told the Queen that Nigeria and Afghanistan are two of the world's most "fantastically corrupt" countries. The Afghan delegate to the Anti-Corruption Summit responded by pointing out that:
 "...clumsy Western intervention in Afghanistan allowed corruption to flourish...We inherited...a fantastically corrupt system...".
 Even more remarkable, in the light of Cameron's remarks, is the fact that an Anti-Mafia Italian journalist, Roberto Saviano, has told an audience at the book festival in Hay-on-Wye that Britain is the most corrupt country in the world. He said:
“If I asked you what is the most corrupt place on Earth you might tell me well it’s Afghanistan, maybe Greece, Nigeria, the South of Italy and I will tell you it’s the UK...It’s not the bureaucracy, it’s not the police, it’s not the politics but what is corrupt is the financial capital. 90 per cent of the owners of capital in London have their headquarters offshore".
For me, though, the greatest surprise was to find that there is actually a league table of corruption, but without divisions,  as in the Football League. Run by Transparency International, its Corruption Perception Index of 2015 lists 168 countries in order of least corruption down to the worst. Denmark ranks at Number 1, while the bottom ranking of joint 167 is held by North Korea and Somalia. Britain ranks 10th and the USA 16th. As might be expected, countries at war feature heavily in the lower rankings, and to be fair to David Cameron, Nigeria ranks 136th and Afghanistan 166th. It would be grossly unfair to suggest that the populations of these countries are happy with this situation. There is a weary resignation to the fact that corruption is rife. As Raymond Bonner has said of the Philippines (number 95 in the table):
"The Philippines is a country in which a man of morals can't be president, in which a politician who hasn't been linked to any wrongdoing isn't assumed to be honest, but merely better at hiding his corruption."
The CPI was compiled by experts, but the Global Corruption Barometer of 2013 was compiled from direct research in 95 countries by asking samples of people: "Have you paid a bribe in 2013?". Australia, Denmark, Finland and Japan scored lowest, with only 1% of interviewees admitting to bribery, while in the UK, 5% replied "Yes", below Georgia and the Maldives. Sierra Leone was bottom of the table, with 95% of their sample owning up to bribery. 7% answered "Yes" in the USA; Russia is strangely absent. David Cameron was no doubt gratified to see that 44% of Nigerians and 45% of Afghans replied in the affirmative, and I was happy to see that only 12% of Filipinos confessed to greasing palms. Just how honest the responders were in these countries is open to question.
Corruption on  the scale it exists in so many countries is unbelievably harmful, as it deprives native populations of desperately needed resources. Remarkably, though, corruption is seen by many people as being entertaining. We see this in the success of scandal-raking tabloid newspapers, and some very successful TV series. The Sopranos, Spiral, and many other crime series are immensely popular with a worldwide public, even if the "good guys" are really only the lesser of a number of evils. One such series as this is the BBC series "The Peaky Blinders", where you are hard put to it to find a single honest, upright character. The writer, Stephen Knight, himself a "Brummie", based his programme on a Birmingham street gang of the early 20th century. The hard core of the gang - in the TV series - is the Shelby family. The head of the gang, and undisputed mastermind, is Tommy Shelby, a decorated WW1 hero who welds his rabble of street scruffs and psychopaths into a highly efficient organized crime unit over the first two series, using all manner of violence, bribery and intimidation to dominate Birmingham and London. The third, and current, series sees them involved in a vicious gang war with an Italian gang (who kill Tommy's wife) and Tommy's involvement in a plot to arm Russian anti-Bolsheviks, which brings him into conflict with dark, unseen, sections of the security services. The Blinders have now become so strong that they can force the sacking of Socialist and Communist trade union officials. They may rob from the rich, but never seem to get round to giving to the poor, even if Tommy scores a victory for the working class by becoming intimate with an exiled Russian countess.
I have to say that the programme is very entertaining, with authentic scenery, convincing plots (fortunately fictional), red-hot sex scenes and sparkling dialogue, even though the heroes are anti-heroes who seem to want to join the ruling class. "The Peaky Blinders" is a "Threepenny Opera" for the 21st century, with Tommy Shelby as an up-to-date Captain Macheath.
So what is it about corruption that entertains? Is it a secret yearning on the part of the viewer to engage in such activities, or is it a kind of catharsis? I know that I feel glad to return to normal after watching such programmes - even if I do watch the next episode!

Donald Lock: Another Innocent Victim

There are some subjects to which I hope never to return, but, somehow, I always find my way back to them. One such subject is mental health homicide, which I first commented upon in March 2013, when I wrote about the murders of Sally Hodkin by Nicola Edgington in 2011 and that of 16-year old Christina Edkins by Philip Simelane in 2013. In 2015, I wrote about the murder in Croydon of Andrew Else and the savage killing of 60-year old Jennifer Mills-Westley in Spain. All four were killed by mental health patients; all are now forgotten by everyone but their grieving families. The murder of Andrew Else was not even reported on the national news. It was almost as if these horrible events were becoming a matter of routine.
This week, however, saw a trial which has catapulted the mental health homicide issue into the headlines: the sickening murder of Donald Lock, a 79-year old retired solicitor stabbed to death by Matthew Daley in July of last year. Daley, like all the other killers mentioned in the cases above, is a mental health patient. There are depressingly familiar features in Donald Lock's murder to all the other cases mentioned above (and hundreds of others not mentioned): the brutal randomness of the attacks; the perpetrators' pleading of diminished responsibility; the baffled anguish of the victims' families; the failure of the mental health authorities to assess the dangerous nature of the perpetrators and their needs.
In this case, I am happy to say, the mental health authority has been publicly called to account by the national media. The Chief Executive of Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, Colm Donaghy has said, under questioning, that they "got things wrong". This grossly obvious fact was followed up by his telling the BBC: "On behalf of the trust, I apologise unreservedly because the care we provided to Matthew Daley should have been better. I also want to offer my sincere condolences to the family of Don Lock and everyone else affected by this tragic, devastating incident."
The timing of his apology is interesting. Mr Lock's son, Andrew, said outside the court after the trial that the Lock family had not, up until that point, received an apology from the trust. This echoes the treatment of Julian Hendy, founder of the "100 Families" website, whose father was killed by a mental health patient in 2007. Mr Hendy received no apology from the relevant NHS authority; all official sympathy was directed to the family of the perpetrator. Until the end of the trial, the same thing seems to have happened in this case. Andrew Lock went on to say:'As a consequence of the failings of the NHS and this verdict, it is clear that Dad would still be here today if they had done their job properly..."
So, at last, this dreadful issue has attained national prominence. The Daily Mail points out:

"It was revealed that Daley's desperate parents warned doctors at least four times he could kill and begged them to section him – but nothing was done; NHS England has been brought in to investigate potential failings in ten killings involving patients of Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust over the past five years; in an extraordinary admission, the trust's chief executive apologised 'unreservedly' to the families of Mr Lock and his killer".

Relatives of the hundreds of families whose loved ones have been murdered by released mental health patients will doubtless be thinking that it is about time this issue was given greater prominence. The 100 families website has details of 1232 such killings across Britain between 1993-2016, but regards this as an underestimate: " They are a considerable underestimate of the total as not every case is reported or known publicly."
There is also the fact that the mental health problems of violent or murderous offenders are not always made public.
So, while the critical publicity of Sussex Partnership is welcome, it is premature to expect much of an improvement in the situation. Colm Donaghy, under questioning by an admirably persistent Channel 5 reporter, said that he could not rule out a similar killing happening again in his area of responsibility. Presumably this applies to other areas in the UK, so no-one should feel reassured.
Finally, there could be a nasty twist in the tail to this story. Matthew Daley will, presumably, be sentenced to a long period of incarceration - but it might not be too lengthy. If he responds well to treatment, he could be released early. This, hopefully, will be reported by the mass media, but the official response will be that every effort has been made by dedicated medical staff to treat him, and that he will be released under supervision. It may turn out well, or it may not. Nicola Edgington, mentioned above, stabbed her mother to death in 2005 and pleaded diminished responsibility at her  trial. In 2009, her secure unit psychiatrist recommended her release, as she was "mostly stable". In 2011, she murdered 58-year old Sally Hodkin. Another case, taken here from the "100 Families" homepage, gives one more example:
"In February 2004, on the day he was due to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital, mentally ill Leslie Gadsby killed his father Arthur with a hammer. Less then two years later, in December 2006, he was conditionally discharged from hospital by a mental health review tribunal, with the agreement of hospital managers and Mersey Care NHS Trust.
In March 2010 he fatally stabbed his mother."
I am sure that all readers and contributors to Rhymes and Routes will join me in sending the deepest condolences to the family of Donald Lock, should they happen upon this posting. I fervently hope that Mr Lock's relatives will not have to face up to the galling but possible release of Matthew Daley - perhaps to kill again. I also hope that the whole of society and the media will continue to take this matter more seriously.

The Titanic, an Approaching Crisis and Supply Teachers

When it comes to problems in education, the present government reminds me sometimes of Captain E. J. Smith, captain of the Titanic, who is supposed to have said, after his doomed ship struck the iceberg: "Don't worry; we're only stopping to take on a little ice". Whether he said this or not, the same complacency and disregard for the facts is typical of government ministers and the DFE when confronted with evidence of an approaching crisis in education: a growing teacher shortage.
Today's BBC website spells out the best indicator of the problem, which is the amount of money schools are spending on supply staff:

"Primary and secondary schools in England struggling to recruit teachers spent £821m on supply staff last year, it has emerged.

Analysis by BBC News shows the equivalent of £168 was spent on each child in order to hire in extra staff to cover vacancies and absences.
Teachers unions say the amount of money spent reflects a "serious teacher recruitment and retention crisis".
Yet, a DFE spokesman says:
"The number and quality of teachers is at a record high, with over 1,000 more graduates training to teach secondary subjects now than a year ago. The overall teacher vacancy rate is 0.3% and has remained around or below 1% for the past 15 years."
Oh, so that's all right then. Of course, it is not; only by willfully ignoring and distorting the facts can the anonymous DFE spokesman be so complacent. Five months ago, the Labour Party shadow education secretary, Lucy Powell, told the Guardian:
"...half of all schools had unfilled positions at the start of this year and are being forced to turn to unqualified staff, temporary supply teachers, non-specialists and larger class sizes to try and plug the gaps".
The BBC quotes the head of a supply teacher agency:
"Becca Morgan, who set up the supply agency Principal Teachers in Catterick 16 years ago, said her company was currently experiencing its busiest ever period.
"We start dealing with schools looking for supply teachers at 6.30 in the morning and I often stop answering calls at midnight. To put it bluntly: without companies like mine the reality is that the education system would grind to a halt."
If Ms Morgan sounds a tad defensive, that is because supply agencies have been accused of putting profit before the provision of suitable staff. There is some justification for this charge. When supply teaching was farmed out to private tender, some agencies were providing some highly unsuitable staff, but this is not relevant here. Perhaps more relevant is to point out that the figures for the cost of supply teaching would be even higher were it not for the fact that Headteachers use Teaching Assistants to cover teaching absences and vacancies, which they are not supposed to do. This is borne out by the example of the Robert Clack School in Dagenham who, says the BBC:
 "... spent the most on supply teachers in England. According to the government's data the school spent £953,807 on extra staff - the equivalent of £526 per child.
Dr Neil Geach, the school's chair of governors, said:
"The figures as reported do not reflect reality... We do not use unqualified staff or cover supervisors to cover teaching groups - our children's education is too important."
It follows, then, that the reason most schools do not spend as much money as this is due to their deployment of Teaching Assistants (and others!) to plug the gaps.
One category of people being left out of this discussion is one to which I so recently belonged: the supply teachers. The figures quoted by the BBC might give the impression that supply teaching is a highly lucrative occupation. For the individual supply teacher, this is not the case, and I can attest to this from personal experience. In 2000, I worked as a local education authority (LEA) supply teacher for two terms. After stoppages, I received £120 a day. When I retired in 2011 and went to work as a supply teacher for an agency, I eventually received, after stoppages, £110 a day. This drop in income is explained by the fact that the agency takes a large cut out of what the supply teacher would once have been paid by the LEA. Whoever is doing well out of the present crisis, it is not the ordinary supply teacher.
What of the future? I think it depends on teacher recruitment. If the recession recedes, the government improves teacher pay and conditions and sufficient teachers are recruited and retained, supply agencies might be much less busy. If things continue to deteriorate, thanks to government complacency, the agencies could be busier than ever.They might even improve the pay of the teachers who work for them.

SATs and the Education Factories

For most of us who were at primary school in the 1950s and early 1960s, our memories are generally happy. This is not to say things were easy. Post-war British schools were obviously poorly resourced compared to those of today, and, for all 11-year olds in the state sector, there was the dreaded 11-Plus exam, which was supposed to determine our abilities and future educational (and life) prospects. There was also corporal punishment, meted out in various forms and remembered with feeling by those who received it to the present day.
But, by and large, there was no pressure on us as youngsters to sit, revise for, or pass as many tests as children face today. Memory plays tricks, but I can remember sunny afternoons when we abandoned lessons to play games outside while being supervised. School life, viewed admittedly through lenses of nostalgic hindsight, seemed to be more relaxed and somehow happier then. No school would dare give its pupils free time like that nowadays, as well I know.
For this reason, I have some sympathy for the parents who kept their children off school yesterday as a protest against excessive SATs testing, even though, like shadow education secretary Lucy Powell has said, I cannot condone children being taken out of school. Anyway, 40 000 parents have signed a petition calling for a boycott of SATs tests to be held later this month. The Children's Laureate, Chris Liddell, said yesterday:
"We should be turning children into readers with the pleasure that gives, rather than relying on a testing culture".
Pleasure is distinctly lacking in today's primary schools, and I speak from experience, having taught in many, both as a supply teacher and a permanent member of staff. This is not to say that every primary school I have been in has been a dismal, joyless place (some were), but the pressure of preparing children for SATs exams is ever present, even in the pleasantest of schools, and that pressure can be intense, for pupils, parents and staff. As Michael Rosen wrote in yesterday's Guardian, in an open letter to the Education Secretary, Nicky Morgan:
" We have now reached a point in English primary education where children will be locked into a sequence of “reliable” tests at four, at the end of year 1, end of year 2 and end of year 6...One vehicle for this “reliability” is based on a lie: that questions about spelling, punctuation and grammar have only right and wrong answers."
On his blog,he states: " It's not really the children being tested. Their results are being used to test the teachers and the schools."
The BBC website sums up the argument against SATs testing very well, saying:
"In an open letter to the education secretary, campaigners have warned of schools becoming "exam factories" and that testing causes stress and can make young children feel like "failures"."
Now, as might be expected, the educational establishment have reacted to yesterday's events with extreme displeasure. The first reaction to consider is that of (Hello again!) Sir Michael Wilshaw, OFSTED chief:
"The government is right to introduce greater structure and rigour into the assessment process. Those who oppose this testing need to consider England's mediocre position in the OECD education rankings," said Sir Michael.
The OECD stands for "Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development ", which has a mission to: "...to promote policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world." All very laudable, but when it places countries in an educational ranking system, it does not allow for cultural or educational differences between countries. Chris McGovern, head of the Campaign for Real Education, would do well to be aware of this. According to McGovern:
"The importance of testing was emphasised by Chris McGovern...
He said that any short-term stress was worth it if in the longer term it meant that children finished school with better results...We're three years behind the Chinese at the age of 15. We are a bit of a basket case internationally."
He is clearly unaware of the fact that Chinese children do not learn in the same way as UK children, relying heavily on rote learning and that Chinese and Japanese schools are even more regimented and exam-oriented than ours, so far at least. Sir Michael Wilshaw, as ever, fails to explain why OFSTED has not dealt with this problem before, despite being in existence since the 1990s.
Nick Glibb, Education Minister, provided an unintentional lighter moment, saying:
"Schools should not be putting pressure on young people when taking these assessments.
"I've been to many schools where the children don't even know they're taking the tests," said Mr Gibb."
I suppose this is possible. I had forgotten Mr Glibb's existence; I didn't even know he was still Education Minister. I think I see pigs flying in formation over Hounslow...
As I have previously observed, Mrs Nicky Morgan and the educational establishment seem to spend so much time reading "Alice Through the Looking-Glass" that they seem to have passed through the looking-glass themselves. I myself have seen the results of SATs and parental pressure upon children, especially the 11-year olds taking their pre-secondary school SATs. I have seen children in tears because they have not gained the highest grades in their results and feared their parents' reaction. I even knew of a case where one child was threatened with violence by her father if she failed to get three Level Five grades in her three exams. These are extreme reactions, but not uncommon. Many parents see good SATs results as necessary for their child's future secondary school place, unaware that most secondary schools administer their own tests for new pupils on arrival, calling the need for Primary SATs at 11 years of age into question. In fact, I have been told by some secondary teachers that they test children in Year 7 because they have no confidence in the Year 6 SATs results! The real reason for the Year 6 SATs tests is to check on primary school teachers and their schools, as Michael Rosen has said. Schools that do not do well in their SATs are penalized by OFSTED, which explains the pressure on teachers, who in turn pressurize their pupils.
Interestingly enough, private schools (and academies) do not have to implement SATs. A Daily Telegraph article of 2012 spelt out the reason for this:
"Less than a fifth of independent preparatory schools now voluntarily stage exams in the three-Rs for 11-year-olds – half the number in the late-90s. David Hanson, chief executive of the Independent Association of Prep Schools, said the tests – compulsory in the state sector – were increasingly seen as a “minority sport” among private headmasters.

He also criticised the “obsession” with literacy and numeracy in state schools, claiming that a national drive to improve standards in the basics was actually damaging pupils’ education, particularly among boys."
I wonder if Nicky Morgan sends her children to an independent school?

Anyway, it looks as if more tests are on the way for our primary schools and, despite Nick Glibb's delusions, will lead to more teaching to the test, and our schools becoming more like education factories than ever. I wonder: will children and staff need to clock on and clock off at the beginning and end of the school day?

In Defence of Ken Livingstone

As the title of this post will doubtless raise eyebrows, I would like to say that I hope Mr Livingstone appreciates what I have to say about him. At the moment, he needs all the defenders he can get, even if he probably would not like what I say here. As he and I differ on the vexed issue of Palestine, he can expect nothing better.
Let me start by saying that if Ken were on trial for his statements yesterday and I was his defending lawyer , I would be advising him to plead insanity. His comment, made yesterday on BBC Radio London was crassly stupid:
"When Hitler won his election in 1932 his policy then was that Jews should be moved to Israel. He was supporting Zionism before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews."
This is utter nonsense; there was no state of Israel in 1932, as has been pointed out by Professor Timothy Snyder. Nor did Hitler "go mad"; his genocidal intent towards the Jews was clear from the day he became leader of the Nazi Party in 1921. Yesterday, Ken defended himself against the infuriated John Mann by saying that he was simply sticking to historical facts. What a pity that his knowledge of facts is so inadequate - Hitler came to power in 1933, not 1932. Nor did the Nazi dictator "go mad", as Ken says. By conquering Europe, Hitler had the means to carry out a policy of annihilation that he had outlined in "Mein Kampf" (1925), and which he implemented with fanatical venom. In mitigation, then, we can say that Ken did not get his facts right, and should read more history. Perhaps he is simply getting old and forgetful?
Now, Ken has rightly been condemned for what he said. Owen Jones (no Tory!) vehemently attacked Ken on TV yesterday - please see here. Sadiq Khan, Labour candidate for London Mayor said:
“Ken Livingstone's comments are appalling and inexcusable. There must be no place for this in our Party".
Tom Watson, M.P. has pledged action against anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. The BBC says here: " Mr Watson said he and Mr Corbyn had been looking at whether "Labour's own structures" needed changing "to make sure that we send a very clear signal to people in our party that we will have a zero tolerance approach to anti-Semitism".
"Do we need to change our rules to explicitly rule out racism and specifically include anti-Semitism in that?" he said.
"We are going to deal with this."
After a number of anti-Semitic outbursts by Labour activists recently, that is very good news. It is also good news for the Jewish community, who are rightly concerned.  In defence of Ken, though, when challenged on his statements yesterday, despite sticking to his inaccuracies about Hitler, he went on to say that he was concerned about what he saw as the true face of anti-Semitism, which is the growth of anti-Semitic hate crime. He mentioned the increase in attacks on Jews, synagogues and cemeteries. If I remember rightly, he said that such crimes dropped during his tenure as Mayor of London and he seemed genuinely shaken by the controversy he had aroused.
So, I do not believe that Ken is an anti-Semite, at least according to his understanding of the term. Rather, I think he sees himself as an anti-Zionist. I wish I had a tenner for every time I'd heard someone say that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism; the proponents of this view repeat it mechanically, and seem to think they are saying it for the first time. Far from being devastatingly original, it is simply facile. What this view fails to acknowledge is that 72% of British Jews regard themselves as Zionists, which is understandable, as so many have relatives in Israel. As Keith Kahn-Harris says in the Guardian:
" While for some anti-Zionism is always synonymous with antisemitism, it is more accurate to suggest that in at least some cases many anti-Zionists are naive to assume an absolute distinction between Jews and Zionism."
Nor do anti-Zionists endear themselves to people like me when we hear of outbursts like Ken's, like those of Naz Shah and the presence of Hamas and Hezbollah on pro-Palestinian rallies, regularly attended by Ken Livingstone and Jeremy Corbyn. Ken has problems with facts, and there is another factual problem of which he is woefully ignorant. The perpetrators of anti-Semitic attacks are made up of three main groups: The far Right, racist yobboes and Moslem extremists opposed to Israel - the latter group being composed of people who probably attend the same rallies as Ken and Jeremy Corbyn (Neo-nazis attend as well, but without a banner).
In a nutshell, I support the decision to suspend Ken Livingstone from the Labour Party. Not because I believe him to be an anti-Semite, just a steaming great prat. As Hugh Muir has said:
"With a light shining brighter in his direction than he might wish, Livingstone will again face charges of antisemitism. He will deny them now, as in the past...
But what he will struggle to deny is that once again, his own quirks and a lack of care and precision in his language have allowed those charges to be repeated, and at a time when both he and his party are vulnerable to them. He will have to explain why he is a repeat offender, knowing that each time his explanations seem less credible.
The wound is self-inflicted. It was unnecessary. And if this time it proves fatal to his place in the party and public life, he has only himself to blame."

The End of Social Mobility and the Demise of Opportunity

Social mobility, or "bettering yourself", as it used to be called, is seen now as being in a bad way. The Guardian, which takes an interest in this subject, has devoted a whole web page to it - see here. Those who take the time to read it will find some very astute, if depressing, articles, to which I shall refer occasionally. I take an interest in this subject because, like many of my friends and contemporaries, I am a beneficiary of social mobility, albeit in an unusual way.
Like most people of working class origin (Father a storeman; mother a barmaid) born after the Second World War, I was given opportunities for social advancement of which my parents' generation could only have dreamed. The opportunity was provided by a massive expansion of education, with government investment in schools and the introduction of comprehensive education. The outmoded class society that existed in Britain was seen as being overthrown by the opportunity for working class kids to go to university, supported by maintenance grants, and aspire to the top jobs that were previously open only to the privileged few who had benefitted from private, elitist, education. This brave new world was symbolised also in the fields of art and popular culture, with singers and actors of humble origin, such as the Beatles and Michael Caine, rising to fame and acclaim. Most of my friends who continued in education at that time gained university degrees (or equivalent) and entered professional jobs. By doing this, of course, they rose in social status, from working/lower middle to middle class.
My own story was somewhat different. Because of ill-health, I missed out on full time education, and left school with no qualifications. At that time, however, there was very good evening class provision in my hometown of Southport, Lancashire. Over time I gained several of what were then called "O" (Ordinary) GCE levels. After my health improved, I began working as a Parks Gardener, and took an English "A" (Advanced) level in 1977, again at an evening class at what was then Southport Technical College. After gaining a good grade, a friend in Southport, who I shall call "JB", advised me that Salford University would accept entrants with one "A" level. I applied successfully, gained my degree in 1980, and qualified as a teacher in 1981. Some people find my story unusual, but there was a number of other mature students, as we were called, on my course and on others in the university. A remarkable thing for me was finding myself financially better off on a student grant than when I was working. This is my social mobility story. Despite my earlier problems, opportunity still existed for me. Oh, the rich were always better situated than we were, but surely we lived in a meritocracy?
Well, we might have done then, but we don't now. As Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett says in her Guardian article:
"The gap between rich and poor remains a gulf. Even when you’ve been to the same university and had the same education, the disadvantages of coming from a poor family can mean earning around 20% less."
And that, of course, is if you can afford to go to university in the first place. As we know, the student grants that my generation enjoyed have been replaced by student loans. This measure has made life much more difficult for poorer students, who lack the extra financial support that richer students get from their families. Gaining a B.A. or B.SC is one thing, but only richer students are able to progress to higher or research degrees nowadays. If you wish to advance in the academic world, these degrees are essential. They, plus private education, can even make a difference whether you get a job or not. As for top jobs, Owen Jones says in his Guardian article:
"  More than seven in 10 of Britain’s top military brass had parents with the means to send them to private schools; the proportion is even higher with top judges. The world of journalism is dominated by gilded backgrounds: according to the study, over half of the top journalists are privately educated, with just 19% having attended a comprehensive. As for politics: well, half the cabinet went to fee-paying schools very few of their electors could hope to attend."
Besides this, there are the people who find themselves in a similar situation that I was in from 1966 to 1977: those who did not do well at school but want to better themselves. This apparent "failure" on their part can happen for a number of reasons: ill-health, family breakdown, bullying, truanting, moving house frequently or being part of an anti-school culture. A year or so back, I wondered what would have happened if I had been in the same situation I found myself back in the seventies. At that time, Southport Technical College, as it was then called, offered a wide variety of examination classes in the evening at both "O" and "A" level. When I looked at similar courses on offer today, at what is now called Southport College, I was shocked to see that there were very few such courses. I mentioned this to my old friend JB; he shook his head and said:
"There's no social mobility any more"
Southport is a small seaside town in the north of England, but things are not much different here  in London. My local council, Hounslow, offers very few examination courses, as does the nearest provider of post-18 courses, West Thames College. Nearly every evening class is geared either for leisure or for English as a Second Language students. West Thames College provides what are known as "Access" courses, but not subject related, and during the daytime only, which is not helpful for people working during the day. It is possible to take "A" levels by correspondence course, but the cost, on average, is £400 per subject, and not the best option for someone on a low wage or benefits. Even should someone in this situation get to university, they will struggle financially, with no certainty of a better job at the end of it - and then be stuck with loan repayments. Again, this is an easier burden ( or none at all) for richer students. The Open University is an option, but it takes six years to get a degree, and is not cheap. For those who fall through the educational net nowadays, it is going to be much tougher to improve their circumstances than it was for me - perhaps impossibly so.
Sorry to have laboured the above point, but it is something of great personal importance to me, and I am well aware that Britain's brief meritocratic dalliance is coming to an end in other ways. In the field of the arts, for example, there is a growing imbalance towards children from privileged backgrounds. Poorer students are unlikely to take up a career in acting when they simply cannot afford to fund themselves while training, or struggling to establish themselves as actors. As Stuart Maconie says in the New Statesman:
"The great cultural tide that surged through Harold Wilson’s 1960s and beyond, the sea change that swept the McCartneys, Finneys, Bakewells, Courtenays, Baileys, Bennetts et al to positions of influence and eminence, if not actual power, has ebbed and turned. The children of the middle and upper classes are beginning to reassert a much older order. In the arts generally – music, theatre, literature for sure – it is clear that cuts to benefits, the disappearance of the art school (where many a luminous layabout found room to bloom) and the harsh cost of further and higher education are pricing the working class out of careers in the arts and making it increasingly a playground for the comfortably off."
He is right. Florence Welch, Laura Marling, Cara Delevigne and James Blunt, to mention but a few, were all privately educated and, as Maconie pointed out in the Radio Times last week, all three male leads in "The Night Manager", as well as Jack Davenport, Emma Watson and comic jack Whitehall all attended the Dragon boarding school in Oxford. This school has an outstanding drama department, and charges £28 000 a year per pupil. Maconie quotes Alexei Sayle as saying of "The Night Manager":
..."even generic Arab terrorist number four has been to Balliol College".
Very few people with any sanity could describe this a healthy situation. If we are reverting to a society governed by class, wealth and privilege, we are excluding very many talented people from important places in our society. History teaches us that when such people feel excluded and alienated, then serious problems can erupt violently. Bastilles fall; Winter Palaces are stormed; mansion houses burn; intelligent criminals grow in number. What is the alternative? None appears to be on offer.

Victims, Do-gooders and What Lies In Between

A long way back in the 1970s, I recall, if my memory serves me well, a TV programme hosted by David Frost, before he became a "Sir". It was a discussion about capital punishment, held with a studio audience composed of people with many differing opinions on the subject. It was rather like the current BBC programme, "The Big Questions", but more edgy and confrontational. One remark has never faded from my memory. During the lively debate, a Scots social worker who favoured lenient rehabilitation for offenders was asked: "What about the victims?" His reply, which I have never forgotten, was:
"Victims? What can you do for them?"
This remark outraged me, as well as most of the studio audience. One young girl, whose brother had only recently been murdered, became terribly upset, and had to be helped from the studio.
About ten years later or more, Granada TV in the North-West ran a similar debate. This time, the most memorable audience member was a lady who lived in my hometown of Southport, Lancashire - Joan Jonker. Her point of view was the complete opposite of that expressed by the callous Scot I mentioned above. Ms Jonker belonged to what, perhaps unfairly, we sometimes call the "hang 'em and flog 'em brigade". She repeatedly blamed the rise in violent crime on "the do-gooders".
To be fair to Ms Jonker, she was no armchair warrior; she ran a charity called "Victims of Violence" and was unafraid to challenge anyone of opposing views, however famous, even, on occasion, confronting hardened criminals. Besides this, she herself was a victim of mugging and burglary, and could provide much-needed empathy for fellow victims. However, like most people who use the term "do-gooder", she was very vague about what the word meant. She gave no clue as to how to recognise a do-gooder, either by dress code, age, political views or occupation. Nor did she ever define what a non-do-gooder was - perhaps a "do-badder"? As might be expected, Joan favoured strong punitive measures for offenders, with little scope for rehabilitation. Not only this, but Joan's admirable charity work might qualify her to be described as a "do-gooder". Now, there's an irony!
These are, I would contend, two opposing, if extreme, views about violent crime which are still prevalent today. Happily, most proponents of the first view are much more compassionate than the heartless Scots social worker mentioned above. They recognise that justice must be done, but assert the need for education and habilitation (many offenders are alienated from society from the first), in order to make criminals into useful members of society. I would welcome any information about the success rate of such programmes. Many people, of course, and especially the tabloid press, regard such treatment as mollycoddling and "soft treatment" for evildoers. This controversy is particularly intense when the issue of lethal youthful and children's violence is raised. A list of such murders includes the Mary Bell case, the murders of James Bulger and Rhys Jones in Liverpool, Lilian Lilley in Oldham, Jimmy Mizen (murdered 2008 by a youth of 19), Ann Maguire (teacher murdered, 2014) and, more recently, the tragic death of Bailey Gwynne in Aberdeen.
This is not the place to offer solutions to this abiding and complex problem, but a number of observations can be made here. Firstly, Mary Bell responded well to her treatment, is now married with a family, and living in happy anonymity. John Venables, one of the murderers of James Bulger, has not adjusted well to normal life after his period of treatment and has served time for child pornography offences; his accomplice, Robert Thompson, has not been caught for any wrongdoing. Ann Maguire's killer has been sentenced to 20 years in prison, despite being 16 years of age. This sentence has been criticised by some and welcomed by others - including me. This is because I know very well that there are some young school students who would find light sentences, such as that of the Bulger case killers, who only received eight year terms, something of an encouragement. Bailey Gwynne's killer has received a nine-year sentence for manslaughter. He probably will serve only half of his sentence, and that will be noteworthy to pupils of this type. Anyone who doubts the existence of such youngsters is being hopelessly naïve. The recent trial of two teenage girls for the murder of Angela Wrightson, in Hartlepool, is evidence of this problem. The double murderer, James Fairweather, who admired the Yorkshire Ripper and who committed his crimes at the age of 15, is another example of this type of young killer.
All of which leads to the question that I was trying to avoid: why are they like this? What makes children and adolescents into killers? No-one, still less me, can answer that. I can, however, point to people who are soon forgotten, and those are the relatives of the victims. Books have been written about Mary Bell, but none about those who lost loved ones because of her childhood crimes. The film maker, Julian Hendy, who runs the "100 Families" website (see "Links") has said that after his father was murdered in the street by a released mental patient, his family received no support from any agency. All the care and attention was lavished on the mental patient. All perpetrators get are fixed term prison sentences; the families of their victims get Life. These families, too, are victims.
"Victims? What can you do for them?"
Well, society and the media could care more than we do now. Commendably, some relatives of murder victims do not remain passive, but take positive action. Jayne Zito, whose husband was stabbed to death by a paranoid schizophrenic almost 17 years ago, founded a charity in his memory; Julian Hendy, as mentioned above, runs the "100 families" website which chronicles victims of released mental patients; the redoubtable Denise Fergus, mother of James Bulger, has campaigned tirelessly for justice for her murdered son. But, for the most part, relatives of murder victims suffer and grieve in silence. Some, no doubt, simply wish to keep their sorrow private, while others find that victimhood is just not newsworthy enough for the mass media.

Nicky Morgan. NASUWT and a Journey Through the Looking Glass

As a NASUWT member for over 25 years (now retired), I was disappointed that my old union invited a Conservative Education Secretary to its annual conference, but, after listening to extracts from Nicky Morgan's speech today, I have to admit to being more enlightened, if not in the way Mrs Morgan would like.
Now, as regular readers of this blog know, I am not a fan of the educational establishment. This lack of enthusiasm is based upon having been on the receiving end of numerous inspections and an awareness of the growing pressures on the teaching profession. I have escaped those pressures, but am well aware that those pressures have worsened since my retirement. Having worked as a supply teacher since I retired in 2011, I can bear witness to those worsening pressures, and will discuss them later.
Let us return to Mrs Morgan's speech. I am often amazed at how senior politicians - in particular those who deal with education - are out of touch with reality, but this speech speaks loudly of someone who has passed through the looking glass. For those who have not read the speech (and those who have avoided listening to it), here is a gem:
“I visited the NASUWT website recently and found of the last 20 press releases that the NASUWT had issued only three said something positive. Wouldn’t it be more helpful if your press releases were more positive?”
Please note: Mrs Morgan is not disputing the veracity of the press releases; it's just that she doesn't like their tone. Anyone would think it was the job of teaching unions to act as a public relations agency for the government, rather than represent the interests of their members.
Mrs Morgan was adamant on one issue, however: all schools will become academies. According to her:
"It isn't for me or officials in Whitehall or Ofsted to decide how best to teach or run schools, it's for you, the teachers who know better than anyone what works in the classroom."
I laughed out loud at this, as academies will be able to employ teachers that are unqualified and - more seriously - the trusts that run the academies will be the ones that decide how schools shall be run - not the teachers. If you click on the link above, you will see that Mrs Morgan laughed a lot during her speech, which perhaps indicates that even she knows how laughable her claims are. As Lucy Powell, Shadow Education Secretary, said:
“Nicky Morgan has failed to provide a single compelling argument as to why these changes are necessary when the vast majority of schools affected are already high performing schools.”
It may also be pointed out that, had a Labour government imposed reforms (or in the case of academies DE - forms) in such a high-handed way, the Tories would have been incandescent with rage at what they would call Stalinist tyranny, or some such thing.
To conclude, I would like to bring a personal perspective to bear on this topic. Let's return to today's speech, and look more closely at what Mrs Morgan said about the negativity put out by the NASUWT. The Guardian quotes here:
“Wouldn’t it be helpful if more of your press releases were actually positive about the teaching profession? Because If I were a young person making decisions about my future career, and I saw some of the language coming out of NASUWT as well as some of the other unions, would I want to become a teacher?” Morgan asked. “No I wouldn’t.”
Once again, I had to laugh. Anyone would think that it is only the teacher unions who are being negative about the state of the profession. Mrs Morgan is so out of touch that she is completely unaware that it is ordinary teachers, current and retired, who are telling the truth about their workload, pay and conditions and, quite rightly, are warning young prospective teachers of what awaits them. I have written a number of blog items about the demoralisation of teachers in the past - is Mrs Morgan going to tell me to be more positive? (She'd better not). Is she going to threaten legal action against older or ex-teachers telling young people not to become teachers - as indeed we do? Somehow, I doubt it.
Lastly, I would like to quote two young teachers, both in their twenties, whom I met recently while doing supply work:
"I've been teaching for five years and I feel like I just want to run away" -  male teacher, facing serious classroom discipline problems with little support.
"This is the end. I'm stressed out as it is" - female teacher, facing an imminent OFSTED visit.
40% of newly qualified teachers leave the profession in their first year of teaching, and even Michael Gove has acknowledged that there is a serious problem with a teacher exodus. Perhaps Michael Gove should tell Nicky Morgan about it? Her return through the looking glass is long overdue.