The Joy of Six 1153

Mathew Pennell looks at the new Liberal Democrat policy document on housing: "I have a vision for housing, I hope it’s based on the most important aspects of the housing crisis - housing is unaffordable, the UK is lopsided when it comes to homes, jobs, opportunities, infrastructure, a lot of social housing is in a terrible state, a lot of new build housing is signed off despite bad planning and placemaking."

John Oxley has good news for Liberal England readers: the Conservatives are heading for electoral evisceration.

 "The marks of restraint are clear on the child’s arm, the bruises that outline a ‘hold’. In normal, everyday language, this means that a member of the teaching staff in a school will have laid their hands on a child who they felt needed to be restrained. In some, but not all cases, that can leave visible injuries. In most cases the memory will stay with them, a psychological mark that will never fade away." Katharine Quarmby fears corporal punishment is returning to classrooms in the guise of restraint and seclusion.

"Take the phrase ‘ghost children’, for example. It seems to have been coined by Robert Halfon, MP in response to Centre for Social Justice figures on pupil absence. Now, it has a life of its own spooking the public and politicians alike." Gemma Moss asks if the concept warrants the attention it is getting.

James Auton defends Britpop against critics who are too cool for school.

"But there, in a Northamptonshire cowfield ("Beware of the bull") that is forever England, reality seemed an awfully long way away. The field sloped down to a dark, dank corner where, secreted by an overgrown thicket, quite hidden from the world, real or otherwise, sat a quiet and algae green pond. We scrambled over some barbed wire and through a tangle of willow and found, with a deep sense of satisfaction, the source of our river." Eric Wark discovers the source of the Great Ouse, which flows into The Wash below King's Lynn.