Six of the Best 485

No one should vote Liberal Democrat to get a coalition, argues Andrew Page.

Sam Freedman is puzzled: "given the improvements in behaviour; the reduction in criminality; the falls in truancy; the increase in aspiration; the improvements in home lives - all of which are known to link to academic attainment - why haven't we seen a commensurate, observable, rise in academic standards?"

As Political Scrapbook shows, the buck for chaos on the railways over Christmas stops with Patrick McLoughlin.

"Shelly Asquith, the student union president at University of the Arts London, says students feel locked out of universities' new 'flagship sites'. 'These buildings have a lot of security,' she told me. ‘Booking rooms is a long bureaucratic process, they are unwelcoming to students with children and any event requires a 10-page risk assessment. They no longer feel like student spaces, more like corporate show homes." Conrad Landin writes on the commercialisation of universities.

NewStart ("The magazine for making better places") offers a five-point manifesto for 2015.

Mick Hume praises Viz on its 35th birthday.

Matthew Sweet at the University of Leicester

I have just got back from hearing Matthew Sweet lecture at the University of Leicester.

His Centre for Victorian Studies Annual Lecture The Victorian World: Prison to Playground - complete with clips from Doctor Who and Penny Dreadful - looked at our changing view of the 19th century.

We are moving from the view exemplified in Viz's occasional strip Victorian Dad to something more nuanced and playful. But both views tell us more about ourselves than they do about the Victorians.

Afterwards I talked to Matthew about William Hartnell, forgotten child stars and Dirk Bogarde.

I also met Professor Keith Snell, who supervised my dissertation on Richard Jefferies many years ago, and (gulp) the granddaughter of one of the Conservative councillors I was on Harborough District with.

The most unexpected thing about the evening was that, during his lecture, Matthew mentioned one of this blog's other heroes: J.W. Logan MP.

As he wrote in the Guardian this summer:

In August 1895 the MP for Leicester launched a campaign against the "grossly demoralising and corrupting character" of the penny dreadful. By a sweet coincidence, his name was John Logan.

The coincidence is that the television series Penny Dreadful was created by another John Logan.

In fact my John Logan was MP for Harborough between 1891 and 1904 and between 1910 and 1916, but it must be him.

Six of the Best 462

Iain Brodie-Brown says the Liberal Democrats should rethink their post-election strategy: be prepared to enter a confidence-and-supply arrangement and abandon the pledge to deal first with the largest party.

"One of the less obvious side shows to the defection of Douglas Carswell MP from the Tories to UKIP has been the report that he may be taking his data with him – detailed data about his constituents, it appears, and according to the Daily Mail people at UKIP are ‘purring’ at the prospect of getting hold of the data." Paul Bernal looks at the legal and moral questions raised when MPs change party and seek to take their data with them.

"I met a woman once with an exhausting history of mental difficulties who was married to a headteacher. Her husband had charge of her medication and she told me she couldn't help noticing that, when they had any kind of argument, he increased her dose." David Boyle on health professionals who threaten patients.

Facebook’s Report Abuse button has become a tool of global oppression, says Russell Brandom on The Verge.

Miles Goslett in the Oldie points out that the BBC is still concealing the truth about who knew what and when about Jimmy Savile.

Alan White from Buzzfeed looks at the unlikely rise, fall and rise of Viz.