Month: November 2014

Why Should Children (And Adults) Believe In Father Christmas?

Standard

“Humans need fantasy to be human.  To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.”

“Tooth fairies?  Father Christmas?  The Easter …”

“Yes.  As practice.  You have to start out learning to believe the little lies.”

“So we can believe the big ones?”

“Yes.  Justice.  Mercy.  Duty.  That sort of thing.”

“They’re not the same at all!”

“You think so?  Then take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy.  And yet … And yet you act as if there is some ideal order in the world, as if there is some … some rightness in the Universe by which it may be judged.”

“Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what’s the point …”

“My point exactly.”

With due apologies to Terry Pratchett

#LetsTalkAbout Race; A white perspective on Challenging Rising Racism

Standard

jaynelinney

Two articles in The Guardian caught my eye this week, the first considers a rush by Ofsted to tackle extremism in education as being “symptomatic of a political frenzy born of hatred“; the second is the editorial identifying “an overlooked report shows that employers trying to fill low-paid jobs draw migrants to the UK“.

Both of these posts allude to the current establishment revealing their true attitudes and apparently, despite the numerous changes to Law over of the past 50 or so years, the Elite along with I suggest many others, still hold Racist beliefs. Whilst this may not in itself seem shocking, I’d go so far to suggest it could with some work by us all, prove positive!

On the surface, this claim from a white woman may well seem plain wrong but please bear with me. I’ve argued for years that it’s so much easier to positively…

View original post 563 more words

Calling politicians ‘childish’ is an insult to children…

Standard

Paul Bernal's Blog

Rather than write about the more obvious points about Plebgate – from the actions themselves to the foolishness of taking libel actions when the consequences of losing could be so damaging and when your reputation has already been substantially repaired – I want to write about one particular turn of phrase used by Mr Justice Mitting. He said that Mitchell’s behaviour had been ‘childish’.

It’s a common enough description – and anyone who ever watches the ridiculousness that is Prime Minister’s Questions, the absurd self-importance, name-calling and point-scoring that most politicians seem to get up to on the BBC’s Question Time knows what it refers to. Politicians do seem to spend an inordinate amount of their time – and from the evidence in the Plebgate libel trial not just their time in the public eye – engaging in this kind of activity. They even do it in the laws they…

View original post 243 more words

Facebook And Twitter – Handling Extremism And Disorder

Standard

Paul Bernal's Blog

For the consideration of Parliament…..

Facebook And Twitter – Handling Extremism And Disorder Bill (‘FAT-HEAD’)

Contents:

  1. When this Act applies
  2. Facebook and Twitter
  3. Social and Moral Responsibility
  4. Code of conduct
  5. Extremism
  6. Disorder
  7. Acceptance of blame
  8. Extent, commencement and short title

A

Bill

to

Make provision as to matters concerning the social and moral responsibility of Facebook and Twitter, to ensure that proper cooperation is made with the authorities in relation to morality, extremism and disorder.

BE IT ENACTED by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—

1. When this Act applies

This Act applies whenever an event of such significance, as determined by the Secretary of State, requires it to. Events include but are not restricted to acts of extremism, of disorder and…

View original post 617 more words

Should @BBCTrending #BBC Correspondents Publish Detailed Biogs On www.bbc.co.uk? #CameronOut!

Standard

I raise this subject because of Sean Coughlan’s post on the BBC website about Tristram Hunt’s private school business rate relief warning from Labour.

The BBC says that Sean has added the analysis below to the story written by Hannah Richardson:

“This demand for the private school sector to work more closely with their state school neighbours will probably be seen as a symbolic gesture.

It allows the tone of Labour’s education policy to sound different from the government’s, when otherwise they have much in common.

The amount of money under threat, £147m per year across more than 1,250 schools, might hurt the smaller struggling private schools. Average fees are about £12,000 per year, but it is not going to trouble upmarket schools charging more than £20,000 per year.

A bigger challenge would be the loss of charitable status and the accompanying tax benefits. But a long-running attempt by the Charity Commission to put pressure on this was pushed into the long grass.

Perhaps more pressing is the recent warning from a leading private school head teacher that if they become too expensive, they risk losing their character and sense of educational purpose and could become playgrounds of the rootless global super-rich.”

Firstly, two correspondents writing on one topic strikes me as a bit extravagant (at a time of austerity).

Secondly, how is this deemed to be an analysis piece?  That last sentence says give us your money to ensure David Cameron may be able to afford to send his children to Eton.  In other words, end our taxpayer funded subsidies and we will have to fully turn ourselves into an export business as a result of increasing our student fees.  And there was me thinking that, in a time of austerity, we all have to do our bit to help UK plc pay its way in the world.

And for the record, the global super rich already send their children to the likes of Eton because of their character, sense of educational purpose and because they long ago became the playgrounds of the rootless global super-rich.  Eton is a place valued as much for the lifelong connections that may be made there as for the education which it provides.

Mr Coughlan’s analysis, channelling the views of the private school sector, reads more like a defence of privilege rather than an analysis of what has been said by Tristram Hunt.  It does, though, serve as a reminder to some on the Left of how quickly these bastions of privilege react at the sight of a single, solitary enemy scout merely observing the lie of the land.

Unlike some on the Left, I have no qualms against using the arguments of this sector against it.  We are, they say in the main article, an asset to the nation.  However, it is clear from Mr Coughlan’s analysis that they are underselling themselves.  Time surely for them to have the burden of public subsidy lifted from their shoulders so that unencumbered by, nay, liberated from the dead hand of the state they may take their rightful place in the firmament by sweating their assets to the full and charging the market rate for their services?  Such an ascension would be a boost to our exports, both visible and invisible.

“Barnaby Lenon, chairman of the Independent Schools Council, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, “pointing the finger at independent schools is a 1980s view of education”.”  Dear Barnaby, surely it is long past the time that the free market logic that closed down the mines in the 1980s was finally applied to the private school sector?  It may “hurt the smaller struggling private schools” to do so, but they will have to improve their productivity or face closure.  It is the way of the world.  After all, I assume the world owes no one a living is still a complusory lesson on your sector’s syllabus?

Incidentally, Mr Coughlan, where did you go to school?