Winter ravens on the Stiperstones

Photo by Sabine J Hutchinson
http://www.virtual-shropshire.co.uk/

My favourite Shropshire hill ranges featured in this week's The Living World on Radio 4:

Lionel Kelleway travels to a remote part of Shropshire where thankfully the raven is making a remarkable comeback. Here on the Stiperstones National Nature Reserve he meets up with Leo Smith and Tom Wall from the Shropshire Raven Study Group, a group who have been studying these magnificent birds for nearly 20 years, and who have recorded the changes in the fortunes for these huge members of the crow family.

Meanwhile at the New Statesman

How has the magazine been getting on since it decided it could manage without my services?

The new Private Eye provides us with a clue:

Insiders at the New Statesman confirm that although editor Jason Cowley earns a handsome six-figure salary, around a third of his staff are unpaid interns. A review of their jobs board confirms that their soon-to-be-launched sister mag, Charity Insight, plans to staff itself from a rolling stock of unpaid interns with no guaranteed job at the end.

Socialism in action.

Richard Jefferies and Walt Disney

There was much hilarity this time last year when it was announced that Swindon was to be twinned with Disney World in Florida.

But, according to a report in the Swindon Advertiser, much good has come from the initiative. Most important as far as this blog is concerned, Disney staff have been helping renovate the garden of the Richard Jefferies Museum at Coate.

There is a radical case for higher tuition fees

I have spent the last few days at my mother's house helping her as she has just had knee replacement surgery. The situation, as we agreed, was rather like an Alan Bennett play.

Because of the peculiarities of Market Harborough topography, you get East Anglian regional television on that side of the town rather than East Midlands. (Here erecting an aerial involves more than just pointing it at Sandy and hoping for the best.) And over those few days Look East, the evening regional news programme, was obsessed with protests against rises against tuition fees by students at Cambridge University.

The more I watched these reports, the more ridiculous those students seemed to me. Here were the offspring of wealthy families venting their "anger" that they were no longer to be given thousands of pounds of other people's money. Objectively, this was a right-wing protest not a left-wing one.

I am old enough to think that middle-class youngsters have an unreasonable sense of entitlement these days. And if you add the symbolism of Oxbridge - I went to a comprehensive and had free school dinners, you know - then these reports were never going to bring out the best in me.

In calmer moments I am a great believer in higher education for its own sake. But that is an increasingly unfashionable view - particularly amongst university vice chancellors. I fear that something along the lines of this week's decision has been inevitable ever since the university sector expanded so rapidly under John Major.
But I do think I was on to something, because I was reminded of a post I wrote in July 2009 asking how Nick Clegg would sell his beloved pupil premium:

what will happen if popular schools in leafy suburbs start excluding children from middle class families in order to take children from working class families who bring more funding with them? And, other things being equal, this is what would happen if the pupil premium were successful.

How would that play with parents in leafy, middle class suburbs? This matters because these are just the sort of areas which tend to elect Liberal Democrat MPs. It happens that Sheffield Hallam is a very good example of this kind of seat.

Well, the pupil premium has gone through almost without comment, but the issues raised by higher university fees are much the same. If we want to make society fairer and to be more progressive - or whatever your favourite buzzwords are - then it is hard to see how spending millions subsidising the higher education of the offspring of wealthy families fits in.

Yet those families may well be Liberal Democrat voters. for Liberal Democrat voters are often just the sort of people who will be disadvantaged by Liberal Democrat policies. In the long run, it is not the students we need to be afraid of at the ballot box so much as their parents.

And, paradoxically, it is those who like to think themselves on the radical wing of the party who tend to be the most vociferous in support of middle-class perks like subsidised degrees and child benefit for higher earners.

******

While I was writing this post, Simon Hughes has been on Newsnight to announce he would not be voting for tuition fees. But isn't that just asking the people of Bermondsey to pay taxes to send youngsters from more affluent boroughs to university?

Tame the Vampire Squid: Take Back Our Banks

Calder on Air: From Mandy to Miranda

My Calder on Air column from last week's Liberal Democrat News.

The real Mandy?

Mandelson: The Real PM? (BBC4) promised the viewer glimpsed of the Demon King in his underwear, taking off all that make up with cold cream, but never delivered it.

Yes, much of the action took place behind the scenes, with the other big beasts in the next room or on the other end of the phone, which gave this profile the feel of a downbeat episode of The Thick of It, but Lord Mandelson was never caught out of character for a moment.

His bullying answer to a journalist’s question on bullying, his reassurance of Gordon Brown that the format of the leaders’ televised debates really suited him, even that notorious handing of a yoghurt pot to an underling... all these incidents showed him just as he wanted to be seen. Not for a moment did the camera catch Mandelson with his guard down. The Real PM? did not represent a stripping away of his mystique but a buffing and replenishment of it.

I have long thought that Lord Mandelson had it in him to become a minor national treasure when he left power. Think of his delightfully twinkling and catty performance in the BBC’s documentary on the forming of the Coalition, explaining that Nick Clegg may have found Gordon Brown “a little bit Gordonish”.

But in the last few days has come the news that Mandelson is to relaunch himself as the head of Global Counsel LLP, a consultancy offering “high-level strategic advice to European companies” – perhaps to people who cannot quite afford Tony Blair’s services.

And then you recall Mandelson’s Machiavellian genius and notice that The Real PM? was directed by a family friend and shown at the London Film Festival before it found its way on to BBC4.

As someone told the Financial Times when considering Lord Mandelson’s new career: “What is his calling card? He has been at the heart of government and knows how the EC works and how regulation works.”

Maybe The Real PM? was always intended to be a glossy version of that calling card if Labour lost the election?

******

When Harry Hill’s TV Burp (ITV) appeared in 2002 its success was thoroughly deserved. Here was a programme that could laugh at popular television without laughing at the people who watched it.

Of late, however, it has become rather pleased with itself. There are too many recurring features that aren’t that funny and too many jokes about bodily functions.

Perhaps the real problem with TV Burp is that it has become too popular. Harry Hill used to make a wonderfully improbable TV personality, but we have come to take him for granted. He is fast becoming the sort of person Harry Hill should be making fun of.

******

We are all believers in the Big Society these days, so the new series Ian Hislop’s Age of the Do-Gooders (BBC2 ) is timely. There are too many top hats and other gimmicks on show, suggesting that the producers are nervous about asking us to take Victorian philanthropy seriously. Which is a shame, because Hislop is introducing us to some remarkable and unjustly forgotten figures.

A huffy piece in the Guardian the other day complained that the series does not mention that state provision was brought in because of the limitations of philanthropy. That is true, but it is equally the case that for decades – think of the rise of community politics in the old Liberal Party – that thoughtful radicals have been aware of the limitations of the state.

And it was great to see the explosively Brummie Professor Carl Chinn, something of a star of regional TV in recent years, being given a national platform.

******

I met an old friend on the train home from work tonight. “Are you one of those people who watches Miranda (BBC2), laughs at it but feels somehow that they shouldn’t be?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied.

The shorter Mike Hancock

I see no reason why I should stop digging just because I am in a hole.

An end to pledges

Much of the trouble the Liberal Democrats face over tuition fees comes not because the party is voting against the policies on which it fought the last election, but because many Lib Dem candidates signed personal pledges saying they would not support a rise in fees.

Whatever your view on the tuition fees issue, there are good reasons why candidates should not get involved with such pledges.

Because they are often signed out of fear. A campaign group asks candidates from all parties to sign a pledge and they sign it, often regardless of the importance of the issue or the coherence of the group's ideas, because they are afraid of bad publicity. No one wants to see a headline like "Lib Dem candidate refuses to support fluffy kittens" (or it may be sad orphans or puppies with large trusting eyes).

Nor is it helpful for candidates to commit themselves to the fine details of policy in this way. I can see that a candidate might think that, say, improving educational opportunities for children from poor families is not negotiable, but I can see no good reason to wed yourself to a particular mechanism of achieving it. Good government does not consist in implementing your manifesto regardless of changing circumstances.

So it would be a good idea if candidates from all parties started being a little more courageous when asked to sign a pledge. And the Liberal Democrats should stop trying to make every collectivist policy that Labour declines to adopt a central tenet of their ideology.

Wizzard: Ballpark Incident

I am back to blogging, and the first thing to do is post a music video.

Market Harborough is full of posters for a Roy Wood concert which is a good reason to pay tribute to Wizzard. I had the misfortune to get interested in the charts in 1973. It was the height of glam rock and things got worse after that.

Still Wizzard have lasted better than most (to be honest, any) bands of that era. Ballpark Incident was the first of a succession of great singles that relied upon a pastiche of earlier rock styles. Despite what the caption says, it dates from late 1972. Do enjoy the inventive abuse of Steve Wright in the Youtube comments.

At the same time as Wizzard was enjoying chart success, the band's moving spirit, Roy Wood, was issuing solo albums on which he played all the instruments, including the single Forever, which was a sort of Del Shannon pastiche.

I may have to go to that concert.

Blogging will be light

I have family commitments for the next few days, so there may not be many posts on Liberal England.

While I am away, you can enjoy:

• Liberal Burblings
• Liberal Bureaucracy
• The Contented Lib Dem
• Stumbling and Mumbling
• English Buildings
• Unmann-Wittering Blog

Llandudno Junction: The end of my holiday

What with it being December and there being snow on the ground, it is time I finished my What I Did On My Holidays posts.

Conwy station has the shortest platforms I have ever seen and few trains, so it was easier to get a taxi over the bridge to Llandudno Junction to start my journey home from there. When I arrived, this steam locomotive was shunting in the station.

And so home to Market Harborough.

Yes! to Fairer Votes opens 14 regional phonebanks

From the Yes! to Fairer Votes website:

We are launching phonebanks in every part of the UK. Below are the first of those locations.

This is the people’s campaign, and our greatest asset is you. Your passion to make our politics better, your story, your voice on the phone.

You don’t need any experience to make calls, and we’ll give you pointers on what to say. But really it’s all about telling the person on the other end of the line why you’re campaigning for Yes, and why they should too.

Each phonebank will be open 11am - 9pm, Saturday until Thursday.

The phonebanks throw their doors open on Saturday, 4 December - apart from the Scottish, South East and South Central who open on Thursday, 9 December.

Sign up to attend a sessions near you.

I am afraid we need a (sic) in that last line, but you get the point.

Liberal Democrat MPs should not abstain on tuition fees

I find it hard to see why there is so much enthusiasm at Westminster for the idea that all Liberal Democrat MPs should abstain when he vote on tuition fees takes place.

Abstention will make our cabinet ministers, particularly Vince Cable, look foolish. At the same time, it will not satisfy the constituents of Liberal Democrat MPs who voted for them because they pledged to oppose any increase.

Sometimes parties in power have backbench rebellions. It is not the end of the world. I would rather see the Liberal Democrats split on the issue than abstaining en masse and satisfying no one.

Lembit Opik to wed?

So say The Sun, the Daily Express and the Daily Mail.

Maybe not then.

Plas Mawr, Conwy

This is Plas Mawr in Conwy, whose guidebook tells you it has been described is the finest Elizabethan townhouse in Britain.

It has recently been restored by Cadw, and the interior plaster work is spectacular. The guided tour gives you the impression that the whole thing was built in the latest style. In fact, it was ever so slightly nouveau riche.

The newsreel I posted the other day has a glimpse of Plas Mawr before the brick frontage was rendered.

Slightly belated Traditional End of Month Lolcat

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Trivial Fact of the Day ends in a tie

All day the sounds of raised voices, overturning furniture and muffled gunshots have been heard coming from the room where the judges for our Trivial Fact of the Day award meet. As there appears to be no one left standing, I hereby declare the contest a tie between the following two facts.

The actor Leslie Nielsen, who died yesterday, had a brother who was the deputy prime minister of Canada.

Erik Nielsen, who died in 2008, served in that capacity between 1984 and 1986. The CBC website has an engaging audio of the two of them being interviewed together. The accompanying photograph suggests that, sadly, Erik did not look exactly like Leslie. That really would have been funny in the cabinet photographs.

The England cricketer Alastair Cook spent five years as a chorister at St Paul's Cathedral.

And it appears that you can here him singing a treble solo on a 1997 CD of works by Blow, Boyce and Handel: Music for St Paul's.

Lord Bonkers adds: The finest classical performance by an England batsman since Brian Luckhurst's Winterreise.

More in sorrow than in Ongar

Earlier today a party member happily tweeted a link to an article on the Brentwood and Ongar Liberal Democrats website.

Under the headline:

Shock at lack of safety checks for "Lighting Up Brentwood"

it complains that the local council has allowed people to act as volunteers at a public event without having Criminal Record Bureau checks.

The arguments deployed range from the toe curling:

"I express my concern over this matter in the strongest of terms, both as an elected councillor representing hundreds of Brentwood families and as the auntie of a three year old boy.

to the spurious:

"CRB checks are also in place to protect the employee/volunteer too and they could be putting themselves in a vulnerable position of facing an accusation.

Fortunately, the relevant minister, Lynne Featherstone, takes a more sensible view:

In the wake of Soham, we were all so horrified by what had happened – that child protection concerns resulted in the introduction of the Vetting and Barring Scheme. All those who would wish to work with vulnerable adults and children had to go through this scheme (which would include CRB checks) to be vetted and if necessary barred from such work. Lists are kept of those who are barred from such work by the scheme.

The consequences of this scheme would have been nine million people having to register – had it become fully operational.

So – the allied action the Government is taking is a review of the Vetting and Barring Scheme to scale it back – as per the coalition agreement – to common sense levels. We are just in the process of setting the Terms of Reference for this review.

The world of suspicious minds we all inadvertently created went too far. Together, these two reviews, Vetting and Barring and the Criminal Records checks, will help us get the balance right.

Six of the Best 111

More good humoured are Laws’s accounts of Paddy Ashdown, who comes through in the book as having played a central role as an advisor to Nick Clegg and others and who hasn’t changed his habits: “I switched off my phone only to be woken half an hour later by Paddy who, having failed to get through on my mobile, had managed to track down my pager number instead. I cannot remember what he said to me at 3:15am, but I have the distinct recollection of thinking that it could have waited until a more civilised hour.” Mark Pack reviews 22 Days in May by David Laws.

Liberal Bureaucracy can handle the consorting. It's the travelling that gets him down.

"The staff of local councils often embody the values of public service more than the senior management do, especially where managers have been brought in from the private sector to run local authorities 'as a business'. Giving staff a greater stake could have the effect, therefore, of strengthening, rather than weakening the public sector ethos." Localopolis argues for the extension of staff mutual councils in local government.

Adventures in the Print Trade looks at George Grosz.

"Is English song like the (supposed) English psyche, reticent and unassuming?" asks Classical Iconoclast after attending an innovative performance of works by Britten, Finzi and Tippett.

geoffpages blog has some lovely photographs of the Stiperstones in the snow.

The Herd: I Don't Want Our Loving to Die

This is another of the sixties tracks where I have always known the song but probably could not tell you the name of the band that recorded it.

The Herd was a South London band given, in the happy phrase of Wikipedia, "a unique blend of pop and flower power" by the songwriters Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley. This was their most successful single, reaching number five in March 1968.

It's most significant member was Peter Frampton, here a fresh-faced young guitarist who must have been all of 18. Indeed, he was named as "The Face of 1968" by the teen magazine Rave.

He was later to form Humble Pie with Steve Marriott of the Small Faces, before enjoying a brief but spectacular period of success in the US with the LP Frampton Comes Alive! The singles from that LP had a gimmick, using a voice box with his guitar - try Show Me the Way.

In 1978 he starred with the Bee Gees in Robert Stigwood's film Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and was rarely heard of again.