Children's literature: Holiday adventure stories vs school stories

The latest The Rest is History podcast deals with the school story. I could have done with a little less about the presenters' own private schools, but they are right to say these stories were immensely important culturally and appealed across the classes.

And just as I was thinking they ought to bring the Trinidadian Marxist historian and cricket writer C.L.R. James into the discussion, they did just that. You'll find James's views on the importance of Thomas Arnold, the headmaster of Rugby, of Thomas Hughes, the author of Tom Brown's Schooldays, and of W.G. Grace in his Beyond a Boundary.

Incidentally I blogged about Rugby, Tennessee, back in 2009 - see the interesting comment from David Heath.

The programme got me thinking about an alternative school of children's school of children's literature that I prefer: the holiday adventure story.

The ur-text for this is school is Bevis: The Story of a Boy by Richard Jefferies, though it was first published as a three-volume novel for adults and only later tricked out with the apparatus (a map on the endpapers; illustrations by E.H. Shepard) of a children's classic.

Then come Arthur Ransome, Malcolm Saville and Denys Watkins-Pitchfod ('BB'). I suppose we'll have to let Enid Blyton in too.

This is already a pretty disparate group, but I think you can claim that if school stories are in part about winning battles against adult authority, then both that authority and adults tend to disappear altogether in adventure stories.

And I'd also suggest that, while school stories are generally of necessity about children of one class, adventure stories are more likely to see a mixing of the classes.

As to the material base of adventure stories, I shall quote again the observation of Victor Watson, in his Reading Series Fiction. They grew out of the agricultural depression at the end of the 19th century, which made the countryside a playground for middle-class children, and were killed off by EEC farming subsidies and Dr Beeching's cuts.

Now read my post on the 1971 BBC adaptation of Tom Brown's Schooldays.

A by-election in Somerton and Frome: puzzlement in Mid Bedfordshire

David Warburton, the MP for Somerton and Frome, has announced that he is to resign from the Commons.

He lost the Conservative whip over a year ago because of allegations of drug use and sexual harassment. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards had already found that he received a £150,000 loan from a Russian businessman without declaring it.

In his resignation letter Warburton admits cocaine use - after drinking 'tons of incredibly potent' Japanese whisky - but denies the harassment allegations and paints himself as the victim in the whole affair.

Somerton and Frome was a Liberal Democrat seat, represented by David Heath, between 1997 and 2010, and the party has an impressive prospective candidate already in place in the shape of Sarah Dyke.

It will take lots of work to win here, but the swing needed is significantly less than the ones we have recorded in our three by-election gains in this parliament.

Meanwhile in Mid Bedfordshire, the Lib Dems are selecting their candidate this evening.

But Nadine Dorries may be cooling on the idea of resigning. She has said she won't do so until she finds out why she's not been given a peerage.

This reveals a sense of entitlement that undermines the 'woman of the people' image she promotes. And I can probably help her solve the ministry.

If Boris Johnson promises you something and that promise is not fulfilled, it is usually not necessary to look beyond Boris Johnson to find out why.

David Heath to promote new laws to control spying agencies

Tomorrow's Guardian says that the former Liberal Democrat minister David Heath is to demand new laws to make sure Britain's spying agencies do not intercept calls or email data without a specific warrant:

He told the Guardian there were gaps in legislation governing the intelligence services that had to be closed, and called for the UK to follow America's example in looking at how to address the issue.

The report goes on to say that Heath attempt to bring in a new bill from the backbenches will have cross-party support. The paper names Labour's Tom Watson, the Conservative former diplomat Rory Stewart, Caroline Lucas, of the Greens, Elfyn Llwyd, the Westminster leader of Plaid Cymru, and Simon Hughes.

Certainly, something needs to be done in the light of recent revelations. Parliament, or at least the dimmer Conservative backbenchers, appears to believe that all we need do is prosecute the Guardian.

But then, under Labour, Blair's deceit over Iraq was set aside in favour of a campaign against the BBC.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: A note from the King of the Badgers

A note from the King of the Badgers

It may be rather a scruffy (indeed, if I am honest, rather a muddy) note, but this one is the most cherished communication of the day. It comes from the King of the Badgers and thanks me for my continued vocal opposition to the cull. It is also magnanimous enough to wish David Heath well for the future, saying that he has been forgotten by all but the most vengeful badgers.

Whether Heath has yet forgiven Clegg for putting him in the job in the first place is another matter.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South-West 1906-10

Earlier this week...

• Sharing my postbag
• Advice to ambitious young Liberal Democrats
• An embarrassment at the Home Office
• The yeti of northern Rutland
• "What about the twerkers?"

David Heath and Jeremy Browne were victims of an earlier reshuffle

I was pleased to see Norman Baker moved to the Home Office in the recent Lib Dem reshuffle. And I note that many of those poking fun at his book on the death of Dr David Kelly – step forward Jonathan Freedland and John Rentoul – are Blairite armchair warriors seeking to refight the invasion of Iraq.

But I do feel sorry for Jeremy Browne, who was sacked to make way for Norman Baker. Because in the previous reshuffle, which took place in September 2012, he was moved from the Foreign Office. And he had given every appearance of being at home there, which he never did at the Home Office.

And Jeremy Browne was not the only Lib Dem who was moved from a job where he was at home to one where he was not in that reshuffle and then sacked this week.

David Heath was by all accounts a success as deputy Leader of the House and, as ‘a good House of Commons man’, he certainly looked happy in the role.

But in September of last year he was moved to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. 

Fair enough for a rural MP, you may say, but he was given the worst hospital pass of all time and was made the minister for shooting badgers. I don't think anyone could be happy in that role.

Now Dan Rogerson has been appointed to DEFRA in his place. I don’t know if he now has responsibilities for the badger cull – it is possible that they have moved the goalposts.

That September 2012 was not just a misfortune for these individual ministers: it was a misfortune for the Liberal Democrats as a whole. Because, despite everything, I like my party being in government and I was sorry to see us giving up any representation in important, grown-up departments like Defence and the Foreign Office.

Why did we do this? The theory heard most often is that Nick Clegg was so anxious to secure the return of David Laws that he was forced to concede a lot of ground in return.

I hope this is true. If Nick gave that ground of his own free will we really should be worrying.

Is this why there are no Liberal Democrat defence ministers?

Last week the Defence Secretary Philip Hammond expressed surprise that the Liberal Democrats did not want to have a defence minister.

Though this Daily Telegraph interview suggested that Hammond is no fount of original ideas, he may be on to something here.

Because Nick Harvey's departure from the Ministry of Defence was not the only disappointing thing for Liberal Democrats about the last cabinet reshuffle. We also lost our hold on the Foreign Office when Jeremy Browne was moved to the Home Office. I, for one, was pleased and proud that we had Lib Dem ministers in these two important ministries.

Meanwhile David Heath, who was ideally placed as Deputy Leader of the House, received the ultimate hospital pass and found himself reinvented as Minister for Killing Badgers.

What was going on? My theory is that Nick Clegg was anxious to secure the return to office of David Laws. David is extremely able, but I suspect the odd role he was given - half schools minister, half Cabinet Office fixer - was a reflection of how small Nick's inner circle is.

In fact, I suspect that Nick was so anxious that David Cameron was able to exact quite a price in the negotiations over the reshuffle. Hence our odd retreat from Defence and the Foreign Office and the sacrifice of poor David Heath.

Badgers fight back in High Leicestershire

From the Leicester Mercury:

Badgers have been blamed for forcing the closure of a country lane by tunnelling underneath it, causing it to collapse.

Two large craters appeared in the surface of the 1.5 mile lane between Somerby and the hamlet of Newbold, making it impassable to most vehicles.

Highways engineers examined the damage on Friday and say the road will be shut for at least three weeks.

One theory is that the badgers had been told David Heath would be passing that way.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Send for the honey badger

Another week at Bonkers Hall draws to a close. On the whole, I think that is just as well.

Saturday

What to do about Heath? He is the most engaging of fellows, but the badgers and I simply cannot put up with him any longer.

I walk by the shores of Rutland Water seeking inspiration and it duly dawns. On my last trip to South Africa, I was taken to see a vicious creature called the honey badger – so vicious, indeed, that it is known to bring down its prey by biting off the male member. I should like to see Heath take him on! Certainly, I took the precaution of wearing my own Extra Heavy-Duty Cricketers’ Box for Use on Green Minor Counties’ Wickets (patent pending) throughout the visit.

Sure enough, I find the honey badger’s card in my pocket book and hurry to the woody bank beneath the Ornamental Arch where I happen to drop it.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South-West 1906-10.

Previously in Lord Bonkers' Diary:

• The King of the Badgers
• "Beardies, weirdies, beardy-weirdies, weirdy-beardies"
• David Heath at the Hall
• "Befangled with ballistics"
• Biffing the badgers
• "I’ll take this bazooka just in case"

Lord Bonkers' Diary: "I’ll take this bazooka just in case"

Friday

Another trying day with Heath. This afternoon, I suggest we go to the village school to watch the little mites rehearse their Christmas play. “Very good,” replies the normally estimable Heath, “but I’ll take this bazooka just in case we run into a badger.”

As we stroll down my drive past the lake (and his missile launchers), he asks me which play the school is giving this year. “Toad of Toad Hall,” I tell him. “It’s one of my favourites – better than all that gloomy Scandinavian stuff they go in for these days. It’s based on The Wind in the Willows, of course. All the characters are there: Toad himself, Ratty, the Mole, Badg…. Shall we go the Bonkers’ Arms instead?”

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South-West 1906-10.

Previously in Lord Bonkers' Diary:

• The King of the Badgers
• "Beardies, weirdies, beardy-weirdies, weirdy-beardies"
• David Heath at the Hall
• "Befangled with ballistics"
• Biffing the badgers

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Biffing the badgers

Thursday

I had settled down to write this Diary after breakfast when I was disturbed by the sound of mortar fire. A minute later, Heath bursts in: “Sorry about the noise. I thought I saw something moving in that covert of yours and thought it might be a badger. Best not to take any risks. I’ll give it another biffing when the smoke has cleared a bit.”

“Why don’t we have an early stiffener at the Bonkers’ Arms?” I suggest hurriedly. “Meadowcroft can call the fire brigade.” As I lead him down the drive I add: “They’ve got a guest bitter from your neck of the woods. It’s called Badg… On second thoughts, let’s stick to the Smithson & Greaves Northern Bitter.”

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South-West 1906-10.

Previously in Lord Bonkers' Diary:

• The King of the Badgers
• "Beardies, weirdies, beardy-weirdies, weirdy-beardies"
• David Heath at the Hall
• "Befangled with ballistics"

Lord Bonkers' Diary: "Befangled with ballistics"

Wednesday

Meadowcroft puts his head through the Breakfast Room window (fortunately, it is open at the time) to inform me that my drive is “befangled with ballistics”. I rush outside to see what the fuss is about and am met by an extraordinary sight: the drive is occupied from the Lodge, past the lake, around my carriage sweep and under my porte cochère by jeeps, tanks and missile launchers. It reminds me of the chilly Moscow afternoon when (for reasons I need not enter into here) I found myself obliged to join the party taking the salute in Red Square.

Just as I am thinking of returning for the Library revolver, a bearded figure in a tin hat emerges from the turret of the largest tank. It bounds forward to greet me and turns out to be Heath. “Hope you don’t mind. I’ve bought a few friends just in case you have badgers.”

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South-West 1906-10.

Previously in Lord Bonkers' Diary:

• The King of the Badgers
• "Beardies, weirdies, beardy-weirdies, weirdy-beardies"
• David Heath at the Hall

Lord Bonkers' Diary: David Heath at the Hall

Tuesday

Do you know David Heath? Our Liberal Democrat MPs are fine fellows to a man – and, indeed, a woman – but if I were kidnapped by highly-paid BBC executives and forced to listen to the ramblings of David Dimbleby until I named my favourite amongst them, my choice would almost certainly light upon Heath. In recent years, he has served as Deputy Leader of the House of Commons, which means that he has been privy to the most delicious gossip: who is up, who is down, whether the government will be obliged to make concessions on the Tramways Bill.

For all these reasons, Heath is a favourite guest here at the Hall and I look forward to his arrival tomorrow, even though he has recently been moved to Agriculture.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South-West 1906-10.

Previously in Lord Bonkers' Diary:

• The King of the Badgers
• "Beardies, weirdies, beardy-weirdies, weirdy-beardies"

Six of the Best 288

Owen Paterson’s announcement on the delay of the badger cull is good news for badgers and for the Liberal Democrats says Andrew Wigley on Liberal Democrat Voice.

"The SNP Government is  not in a good position two years out from the Referendum. There is no cause for complacency in the Better Together camp but the First Minister's personal and political credibility has taken a huge dent. His glib assertions that everything would be fine in an independent Scotland have been shown not to be nothing more than hot air." Caron's Musings gives Alex Salmond both barrels.

Max Atkinson has clips of Conrad Blak's interviews with Adam Boulton and Jeremy Paxman.

"In a less than a decade, building on Richard Louv’s thought-provoking phrase ‘nature- deficit disorder’, the issue of getting children back outside to play has garnered public, government and media attention." Bob Peart writes on the Children and Nature site.

Talking Philosophy remembers when Lord Russell met Lord Russell - thanks for the photo.

The holloways of Cornwall are explored by Frames of Reference.

More Liberal Democrat ministers

The FT Westminster blog - now essential reading - has a further list of ministerial appointments. I think they have all been announced now.

The Liberal Democrats in the new list:

Home Office
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Minister for Equalities) – Lynne Featherstone MP

Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State – Ed Davey MP

Department for Communities and Local Government
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State – Andrew Stunell MP

Department for Transport
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State – Norman Baker MP

Office of the Leader of the Commons
Parliamentary Secretary (Deputy Leader) – David Heath MP

Law Officers
Advocate General for Scotland – The Rt Hon Lord Wallace of Tankerness (Jim Wallace)

Whips: House of Commons
Deputy Chief Whip (Comptroller of HM Household) – Alistair Carmichael MP

Whips: House of Lords
Deputy Chief Whip (Captain of The Queen’s Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard) – Lord Shutt of Greetland (David Shutt)

Norman Baker a minister? That really is the new politics. And congratulations to David Heath in particular too.

I am also pleased to that both the Comptroller of HM Household and the Captain of The Queen’s Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard are Liberal Democrats. It was high time we got those positions back.

Six of the Best 35

Writing on Liberal Democrat Voice, Mark Pack informs us that the state now has the right to intercept anyone's post without informing them. And this new power got through the Commons during the wash up process without any debate.

In view of this we had better hope that Jock's Place is on to something when he argues that all the laws that have come out of Westminster since 1999 are consitutionally invalid.

St Aidan to Abbey Manor presents videos of the three party leaders talking about how they see the church and faith groups: "I have to say that Clegg comes across best from this, even though he's the only one of the three without any stated Christian faith. Cameron sounds more like a sales pitch: he says all the right things, but it sounds a bit rehearsed. Brown's view seems to see faith groups as a potential arm of the state, to help deliver the Labour agenda."

Gary Allanach dispels three myths about the Liberal Democrats that he has caught Labour putting forward.

Thanks to Reginald Perrin and The Good Life, Norbiton and Surbiton are two of the spiritual homes of British situation comedy. Diamond Geezer visits them both.

Finally, back to Lib Dem Voice for the toy that all Liberal Democrats will want: a David Heath action figure.

David Heath features in Yeti-related Simile of the Day

A couple of weeks ago "incensed mum" Vanessa Kimbell won our coveted Imaginative Simile of the Day award for saying the floor of the changing rooms at Market Harborough's swimming pool looked as if a "Yeti had been attacked". (Read Go Litel Blog, Go... on this too.)

This category proved so popular that it led us to instigate a new award. As a result, Yeti-related Simile of the Day goes to Anne Treneman of the Times.

Because, writing on his new blog, the Liberal Democrat MP David Heath reveals that Anne Treneman of The Times recently likened him to "a yeti in a barber shop".

So well done to Anne.

David also tells us that Matthew Parris once said he was "like a Tajik with a toothache". But Parris came away from the 1999 Central Asian Figure of Speech Awards empty handed.

House Points: Joan Ruddock, Nigel Griffiths and the Met's Ironic Squad

Just after I had sent this off to Cowley Street, Liberal Democrat Voice posted Tony McNulty's attack on benefit thieves". There is a case for the Ironic Squad if ever there was one.

Henry Porter's Guardian piece is here, and the most ludicrous skirmish in the police's war on chalk was that with five-year-old Ryan Badland from Burnham-on-Sea.

Ironic times

Writing on the Guardian website, Henry Porter complained about the arrest of a 23-year-old student. Paul Saville was collared by four police officers after chalking "Liberty: the right to question. The right to ask: 'Are we free?"' on the pavement. He is now awaiting trial for criminal damage.

It is not an isolated case either. There have been several reports of children being threatened with legal action for doing t"hings like drawing hopscotch grids in the street.

Though it’s hard to avoid the thought that Saville is a little old for this sort of thing, the police reaction was ridiculous. Don’t they have more important business to attend to? And what is wrong with saying “Who do we think we are, sir? Jean-Jacques Rousseau?”

Porter complained that the police betrayed “a lack of irony”. But I’m not sure the police do irony. Certainly, it’s not something they test for in new recruits.

Still, maybe the Met should have an Ironic Squad. It could be called in if someone, say, fell from the roof and broke a leg while trying to break into the Health and Safety Executive.

And if there were such a squad, it would have lifted two MPs in the past few days.

The first is Joan Ruddock, the minister who blocked David Heath’s Fuel Poverty Bill on Friday. She complained it took an “absolutist position”.

I’m not sure what good side of fuel poverty she had in mind, but let’s not forget that Joan Ruddock began her political career as chair of the unilateralist Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the 1980s.

The other suspect for the Ironic Squad is Nigel Griffiths. Last November the Labour MP for Edinburgh South was annoyed the Tories had taken Labour by surprise and forced a debate on the pre-budget report. He began his point of order with “Is it in order for MPs to pile into chamber…” and was laughed at from all sides.

It now turns out from the News of the World that, in the same month, Griffiths used his office... Well, let’s just say his career would be looking a lot healthier if he had spent more time in the Commons chamber.

Oh, the irony!

Help David Heath's Fuel Poverty Bill

Just before Christmas, David Heath - the Lib Dem MP for Somerton and Frome - came second in the ballot for private members' bills. That means that he has a fighting chance of getting a now Act of Parliament on to the statute book.

On Friday 20 March his chosen measure, the Fuel Poverty Bill, has its second reading in the Commons. You can read more about the thinking behind the bill on the Liberal Democrats website and the Consumer Focus website.

In order for the bill to make progress next Friday, a hundred MPs must take part in the vote following the second reading debate.

So it would help David if you could write to your MP and ask him or her to turn up and vote for the bill. The Consumer Focus site has a draft letter.

House Points: Those Pennsylvania judges again

Today's House Points column from Liberal Democrat News.

In the slammer

It’s half term at Westminster, so let’s report a story from the USA. Two judges have pleaded guilty to accepting more than $2.6 million in bribes from a private youth detention centre in return for giving hundreds of youths and teenagers long sentences.

Soon, no doubt, judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan from Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, will be unwigged (or whatever happens to corrupt judges) and find themselves in the hoosegow. But their actions have wider importance because they are the logical outcome of allowing the profit motive into the judicial system.

As Rumpole used to remind us, a great many comfortable professional careers are built on the backs of Britain’s criminal classes. But treating Crime Control as Industry, to quote the title of Nils Christie’s 1993 book, is dangerous.
As Christie argues:

Only rarely will those working in or for any industry say that ... we are big enough, we are well established, we do not want any further growth. An urge for expansion is built into industrial thinking, if for no other reason than to forestall being swallowed up by competitors. It follows that once commercial interests are allowed into the system, there will be pressure for more prisons to be built. And to find the prisoners to fill them.

Which is why teenagers in Wilkes-Barre, PA, found themselves banged up for trivial offences like blacking someone’s eye in a playground fight or setting up a MySpace page critical of a teacher.
It’s hard not to cheer when a parent says: “It’s horrible to have your child taken away in shackles right in front of you when you think you’re going home with him. It was nice to see ... [the judges] sitting on the other side of the bench.”

But Ciavarella and Conahan were only taking the commercialisation of crime control to its logical conclusion.

******

A couple of weeks ago I quoted an eloquent speech on the need for reform of the Commons and Lords, attributing it to David Howarth. It was in fact made by David Heath.

Apologies to all. Speaking as someone who joined the Liberal Party in 1978, it is wonderful that we have so many MPs that you get them confused.

House Points: Government capital spending and Parliamentary standards

My House Points column from today's Liberal Democrat News.

Frozen funds

Britain shivered. Wolves and polar bears patrolled the frozen Thames while junior civil servants held snowball fights and the more conscientious MPs arrived on skis.Or so we were told. The newspapers always get overexcited when it snows on South-East England. Personally, I enjoyed an uneventful journey from Leicestershire to Manchester and back on Monday, but it sounds as though London fell to pieces.

Inside the Palace of Westminster it was the Liberal Democrats’ turn to decide the topics for two Commons debates. The first was on government capital expenditure and the second on Parliamentary standards and constitutional reform.

Vince Cable froze his listeners’ blood (not that it was exactly warm to start with) by pointing to the “the virtually complete collapse of private finance initiative projects”. He told the House that he had been shown the minutes of a meeting of council leaders from the South-West. They reported repeated appeals for the Department for Transport to say whether the investment projects that the government had announced were going to happen. The leaders never got an answer.

This matters in a world where we need to revive the economy through public spending, because this government has been relying so heavily on these projects to deliver that stimulus. And even where the projects are still operating, they are hard to evaluate them because of the veil of secrecy that shrouds them.

David Heath was more fun, pointing out that the House of Lords contains “a convicted perjurer, a convicted fraudster and a convicted fire raiser”. (I should point out that they are not all the same person, so things are not quite as alarming as they at first sounded.)

He called for reform of both Commons and Lords, and ended in fine style:

“We cannot make our politics work unless people have trust in the political system, and hints at reform are no longer enough ... unless we start the process, our democracy will not be fit for purpose. It is demonstrably not fit for purpose at the moment and there is no better time for us to make a start.”

Meanwhile, at Westminster Tube station, disconsolate penguins swathed in scarves waited in vain for a train to Stanmore.