The Liberal Democrats are rock solid favourites to hang on to the Bath seat at next year’s general election, according to bookmaker Ladbrokes.
The firm is the first to release odds for the constituency currently held by Don Foster, who is retiring at the May 7 poll.
Ladbrokes has given recently-selected candidate Steve Bradley odds of 1/16 on, with Conservative Ben Howlett second at 6/1.
"Many, many parents from deprived areas, including what is generally called the dependency classes, are essentially not particularly interested in any form of academic education. Their interests are directed towards pop culture, sports."Today that award goes to Richard Walden, chairman of the Independent Schools Association.
The state education system is producing a generation of "amoral" children who fail to understand the difference between right and wrong, according to a leading private school headmaster.Walden does have something important and sensible to say about state schools being forced to concentrate too much on their place in the league tables. But there are plenty of examination mills in the private sector too, so it is foolish in the extreme to reduce this debate to one of state vs private education.
He also calls on the Government to provide taxpayer-funded places at private schools to address a shortage of provision in the state education system, particularly for primary-age pupils.
This would provide a less "risky" alternative to the creation of new free schools - state institutions run independently of local council control - following a series of high-profile failures in recent months, he suggests.
"I do not believe it is necessary for government to pour millions into trying to establish new schools in many areas where there are already good independent schools," he says. "A new school is risky: it takes time to develop the ethos you want and initially it may not work.
"If politicians would take courage and channel funds into placing pupils at already well-established independent schools, they would know in advance the likely outcomes for the pupils."So how do you persuade the struggling upper middle classes to keep paying school fees? Easy. You try to spread the idea that all state schools turn our amoral children, that's how.
Tuesday
The pride and joy of my gardener Meadowcroft is his collection of rare hairy cacti. He gathers them from the arid south of Rutland and tends them in the way that a particularly attentive she wolf looks after her whelps.
I well remember his fury when a young whipper-snapper from Westminster School burnt down the glasshouse where he keeps them. My first reaction was to hand the lad over to the Proper Authorities, but learning that he was some sort of nephew of my (how shall I put it?) old friend Moura Budberg, I relented and dealt with the matter myself. I informed the errant youth that he would work for Meadowcroft until he had made full and proper restitution for the loss of the aforementioned prickly crop.
Over the years Nick Clegg (for it was he) has had himself elected to the European Parliament and the Commons, but he still comes to the Hall regularly to do odd jobs. (What with compound interest and the strength of the Rutland pound, debts can take a long time to pay off.)
This afternoon Meadowcroft and I find Clegg perched on a garden seat writing a speech. “Never mind being a scholard,” says my favourite horticulturalist, belabouring him with a broom, “get out and sweep up they leaves.” “I think Clegg has just left his comfort zone,” I observe as he rushes out to work in the garden.
It's not that I am a rabid opponent of supermarkets. I do a lot of my shopping in them and believe that Market Harborough is thriving because it has a good balance of national chains and small local shops.
When I was a councillor more than one older voter told me that in the 1950s and 1960s the old town council had done its best to keep supermarkets and new business out because councillors feared they would force up wages. Such was the dominance of the town shopkeepers on that council that I can quite believe it.
But that was a long time ago and the balance of shops Market Harborough enjoys today can easily be destabilised. And if there is a large supermarket in Rockingham Road then the people who shop there may never see the town centre at all.
People are asking whether Market Harborough needs another supermarket. But these national chains know there business very well and I suspect this new store is aimed chiefly at the people who come into Market Harborough to do their main weekly shop. I find it hard to believe that the people who live in the pleasant new houses that ring Corby, for instance, shop in that town.
So a new supermarket in the Rockingham Road will keep those shoppers out of the town centre and away from all the other shops. Far from creating jobs, as is claimed, it may end up destroying them.
The top European court has backed the "right to be forgotten" and said Google must delete "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant" data from its results when a member of the public requests it.Is this workable? Will judges' idea of what is relevant be the same as that of the wider public? And, most importantly, will it be members of the public who make most use of this power?
However, inasmuch as the removal of links from the list of results could, depending on the information at issue, have effects upon the legitimate interest of internet users potentially interested in having access to that information, the Court holds that a fair balance should be sought in particular between that interest and the data subject’s fundamental rights, in particular the right to privacy and the right to protection of personal data.
The Court observes in this regard that, whilst it is true that the data subject’s rights also override, as a general rule, that interest of internet users, this balance may however depend, in specific cases, on the nature of the information in question and its sensitivity for the data subject’s private life and on the interest of the public in having that information, an interest which may vary, in particular, according to the role played by the data subject in public life.Nevertheless, it is public figures who have the money to employ the sort of lawyers Google will take notice of. So it is public figures who are most likely to benefit from the "right to be forgotten".
He will be working with elderly patients, among whom a classic test for judging confusion is to ask who the prime minister is. Unless the doctor is well briefed, answering "The last time I took an interest, it was that guy mopping the floor" could lead to misdiagnosis.
The church is one of the oldest sites of Christian worship in London. The altar houses a 7th century altar stone and medieval fabric survives although much of the visible church dates from 1848. It retains its rural character, surrounded by a Victorian park and historic burial grounds housing the tombs of John Soane, Mary Wollstonecraft and many others of note.
Ancient drains threaten the longevity of this picturesque Grade II* listed building and last year the St Pancras Old Church Appeal was launched to raise urgent funds to build new drains and repair cracks in the stone walls.
There has been plenty of progressive backslapping this morning because Britain was one of the many countries to award the full 12 points to the bearded Austrian drag act Conchita Wurst in Saturday night’s Eurovision Song Contest. We showed those bigots over in Eastern Europe and Russia a thing or two, the chatterati say.
Mr S hates to be a party-pooper, but he has news for you. The British public actually voted for some Polish girls in milkmaid outfits, seductively churning butter and cleaning clothes. ...
The blushes of our progressive elite were spared by the suspiciously complex voting system. There is a 50/50 split between unelected and unaccountable judges and the votes of the public; Poland topped the UK’s public voting tally, but were awarded zero points by the UK overall because the unelected judges ranked Poland 25th.You can see the voting figures for yourself on the Eurovision results page.
Readers who are interested in politics ought to begin Paddy Ashdown’s autobiography on page 155.That's how.
About fifty years ago “gender segregation” came to an end at All Saints’, Margaret Street, in London’s West End. For many years the congregation had divided, male and female, on either side of the nave in the front part of the church. This had been one of those examples of ‘correctness’ which the Catholic revival in the Church of England, the ‘Oxford Movement’, had sought to encourage.
In the early 60′s I went with my aunt to the celebration of Candlemas on 2nd February. Although the custom of separation had been given up I seem to remember that she was the only woman sitting on our side of the church.
