The National Association of Head Teachers and bad behaviour

A BBC report on the union's 2007 conference:

Parents too often encourage their children to behave badly at school by giving endless excuses for their behaviour, head teachers have said.

The National Association of Head Teachers said parents had responsibilities as well as rights.

At its annual conference, it voted unanimously to work with the government to enforce a "respect agenda" and reduce harassment of school staff.

And a BBC report on this year's conference:

Teachers at a conference have jeered a minister after she talked about league tables and tests in schools.

The flashpoint involved Children's Minister Beverley Hughes at the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) conference, in Liverpool.

During a question-and-answer session, she said teaching was a great job, but was jeered again by a large proportion of the teachers in the hall.

If headteachers behave like this, is it such a surprise that their pupils are badly behaved?

See me afterwards, headmaster.

The Fifth Dimension: Wedding Bell Blues

No great sociological significance this week, just a great and forgotten record.

Fifth Dimension has the US hit with "Up, Up and Away" and also worldwide hits with a medley from the hippy musical Hair.
Not that they look much like hippies in this.

Will Tory triumphalism be their undoing?

Martin Bright writes on his New Statesman blog:

I was sitting on a panel in the Sky News studios at 2.30am this morning when something horrible flashed up on the giant screen in front of us. Not the tally of lost seats or the projections of what the night's results would mean if reproduced at a general election - though these were bad enough.

No. It was the sight of the Tory leader and Francis Maude enjoying a smugfest at their Millbank headquarters, all specially filmed for Webcameron. And this was just the local elections. Imagine what a general election victory would be like.

And there are plenty examples of such smugness about already. Here are a couple.

Iain Dale has floated the idea of Stanley Johnson succeeding Boris as MP for Henley, and Jonathan Isaby at the Telegraph has enthusiastically taken it up:

The man himself does nothing to suppress the idea.

"Put it this way, I'm still on the candidates' list," the 67-year-old grandfather of eleven and former Conservative MEP has just told me.

"Obviously it would be up to the Henley association as to whether they invite me for interview, but I don't see why I shouldn't put in for it."

Johnson Senior stood in Teignbridge unsuccessfully at the 2005 general election and would be a delightful addition to the House of Commons.

Maybe this is all tongue in cheek, but by-elections where the sitting member has voluntarily walked away from the seat are always difficult for the defending party. (That is why I will believe in Boris's resignation when I see it.) Even in Henley, the idea that Stanley should be the next MP because he is a Sound Chap may not go down well.

And over at the Independent Simon Carr, usually so healthily cynical about all politicians, has come over all floppy and Brideshead about the new Tory leadership:

Some years ago, just before the last general election I was watching Boris performing in the Oxford Union, doing well in his natural habitat.

Later, in the street, among the criminal obesity and facial metal, I couldn't see how Boris could ever appeal to such a world. And I wrote that the Conservative Party didn't have a chance of being elected while Boris was a member of it.

I eat those words, and very nice they taste. Whoever wins in London, the ultimate amateur has made a fantastic breakthrough. It must shatter the world view of Ed Balls and other class warriors that the concept "Tory toff" no longer has the power to move mountains.

It's Gentlemen vs Players, and for good or ill, for the first time in a generation, the Gentlemen are in the game.

We must make allowances: Carr was himself a star of the Oxford Union as a young man and we are all entitled to our personal nostalgia. And the idea that describing someone as a "toff" is enough to dismiss their views is pretty silly. Where would it leave Tony Blair, Nick Clegg or Ed Balls himself?

But come off it, Simon. The idea that the self-important pups of the Oxford Union are too civilised for the rest of us is nonsense. Evelyn Waugh may have gloried in the exploits of the Bullingdon, but he never presented them as moral exemplars.

Nor would anyone who has read Andrew Gimson's biography of him easily describe Boris Johnson as a gentleman. There is something shabby about his act in all senses of the word.

Returning to Stanley, one in the 1970s the Johnson family - boys and girls - all had long blond hair. And Stanley's was the longest and blondest of all. Seen en masse, they resembled the Midwich Cuckoos run to seed.

So Tories beware. Your revival under David Cameron has been based upon at least the appearance of modesty. Much more of this nonsense and the public will remember how much it hates what you really stand for.

Why are the Lib Dems so bad at PR elections?

For a party that is so keen on proportional representation, the Liberal Democrats do disappointingly badly when the system is actually employed.

In London neither the use of the alternative vote for the Mayoral election nor the top-up lists used for the Greater London Authority elections have done anything to boost Lib Dem support.

In Wales we do very well where local authorities are elected by first past the post, and Assembly elections reflect our strength in a handful of Westminster seats. But we have yet to make much of an impact on the second "list" votes. The same broadly holds true for Scottish Parliament elections.

(Let me know if I have got any of this wrong. News was always slow to reach Market Harborough.)

Why is this?

Ironically, it is because we are very good at working the first past the post system we so despise. At ward or even constituency level it is possible to flood the area with workers, and we are very good at fighting local campaigns and at putting a tactical squeeze on the third party.

Our failure to do well when more proportional systems are used - granted they are not what we would choose, but is there evidence that we would do any better under the single transferable vote in multi-member constituencies? - suggests that we are less good at identifying ourselves in the public mind in with a positive and unique policy agenda.

Granted that is far easier said than done, but should we Liberal Democrats be praying that we never achieve our heart's desire - proportional representation?

Controversial mayor to leave post

Not London, Ludlow.

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

Don't forget to nominate something for the BritBlog Roundup

But how do I do it?

Full details here.

The 2008 local elections

I had intended to blog the results last night, but did not get any further than offering an unrivalled service to Derby Arboretum Ward. Incidentally, we made a total of five gains in Derby and are now the largest party on the council there.

But I was driven off to bed by Jeremy Vine and David Dimbleby. Vine's attempts to make the programme interesting were merely embarrassing. Why can't the BBC grasp that the only people who watch results programmes after midnight are political junkies anyway, so they don't want gimmicks. And why oh why do they have to get David Dimbleby out of mothballs for these programmes? Here's why, come to think of it.

And did I really hear Charles Kennedy say we should look particularly for the results in Somerset? There were no elections in Somerset yesterday.

As to the results, I think it fair to say that the Liberal Democrats have done significantly better than we expected. Hull and Sheffield were gained: Newscastle and (just) Liverpool were retained. And we have also done well in areas where we have MPs (Winchester, Cheltenham, Colchester) or hope to make gains next time (Watford, St Albans).

Last night's results will also consolidate Nick Clegg's position. This is welcome, though I suspect that the results had far more to do with the hard work and professionalism of our local parties than with his leadership.

The Liberal Democrats are not about to sweep into government, but nor are we going to go away. We are what we are: a party that consistently wins the support of a quarter or just less of the British people and has areas of considerable local strength scattered across the country.

House Points: A ban on junk food advertising?

My column from today's Liberal Democrat News.

Unhealthy food talk

On Friday all sensible Conservatives were away working in the local elections and Boris Johnson was busy in London. Which left just the real Tory Party at Westminster. And you can forget all that stuff about letting sunshine win the day and hugging huskies, because nothing has really changed.

The first piece of business was a private member’s bill, promoted by Labour’s Nigel Griffiths, to ban television advertisements for unhealthy food before the 9 p.m. watershed. Griffiths had an impressive range of organisations - Diabetes UK, the British Medical Association, Cancer Research UK - lined up behind him.

For the Lib Dems, Martin Horwood was an enthusiastic supporter while Don Foster clearly had doubts.

And, yes, this is the sort of bill that does divide parties. What was notable about Friday was not that there were Conservative MPs opposing Griffiths but how weak their arguments were.
Take Nigel Evans, whose many radio appearances have played a small but honourable part in establishing the Tories in the public mind as the nasty party. "Does the hon. Gentleman really want to go down in history as the man who killed Ronald McDonald?" he asked, pleased with his own cleverness.

But does anyone in Britain like Ronald McDonald? Whatever their views on junk food, whatever their views on McDonald’s, there is not a person in the country who would not rejoice if that gruesome clown were found hanging from one of his golden arches.

Other Tories were concerned with the effect a ban would have on the funding of children’s television or announced that the National Farmers Union is against the bill. And others urged the House to safeguard the advertising industry. That industry, you understand, is worth billions, but oddly its products have absolutely no effect on the behaviour of the children who are exposed to them.

So what is the Conservative answer to child obesity? Again and again they urged parental responsibility. And parental responsibility is a wonderful thing. But the thought that those parents are entitled to get together and use the institutions of a democratic society to make it a little easier to exercise that responsibility still seems beyond the sort of Tory MP who finds himself at a loose end in London on Fridays.

Lib Dems gain seat in Derby

The Arboretum ward, no less.

Derby, incidentally, is run by a Lab/Con coalition.

And there is more on Derby Arboretum here.

"For all their faults, Lib Dems are best of a bad bunch"

The Liverpool Daily Post LDP Business site displays great political wisdom, and in passing wins Headline of the Day.

Note too its observation that "you may as well vote Monster Raving Loony Party as vote Tory in this city".

Three popular Basils of the 1970s

A little fun for polling day. Click the pictures to learn more.

Dirty Dozen 4

The latest of my monthly selections of the worst and best in Labour and Tory blogging has just gone up at Lib Dem Voice.

A great way to promote your blog

The Britblog Roundup - a selection of the best in British blogging from the past week - was founded by Tim Worstall in February 2005 and appeared on his blog each week for two years. For the past year or so it has been on its travels, appearing on a different blog each week.

On Sunday (4 May) I shall be hosting the Roundup here on Liberal England.

If you see a posting on a British blog this week that you think should appear, please send the link to britblog [at] gmail [dot] com before Sunday lunchtime.

And the reason for my headline? You are free to nominate something from our own blog!

A referendum on the Lisbon treaty - in Ireland

Don't worry, I am not going to revisit the Liberal Democrats' recent traumas over the subject.

But there is going to be referendum on Lisbon in the Irish Republic. And according to the Sunday Business Post the Yes side of the question may be in trouble:

Public opinion has moved sharply against the Lisbon Treaty, with the Yes side now enjoying only a slender lead, according to the latest Sunday Business Post/Red C monthly tracking poll.

Support for the treaty has fallen from 43 per cent in February to 35 per cent today among those entitled to vote in the referendum. Those opposed to the treaty have increased from 24 per cent to 31 per cent. The number of undecided voters remains almost unchanged, at 34 per cent.

With seven weeks remaining until the expected polling date, incoming taoiseach Brian Cowen, the government and the broader Yes campaign face a difficult struggle to regain the initiative.

A posting by Mick Fealty on the Daily Telegraph Brassneck blog suggests some of the reasons for this. The only mainstream party on the No side is Sinn Fein but, says Fealty, most of the intellectual capital for that camp is being made by the Galway-based think tank Libertas.

It points out that the new constitutional settlement will see Ireland's influence reduced and there are fears that the country will be forced to change its economic policies in the cause of tax harmonisation.

Interestingly, there is an article in the current Liberator by Tim Pascall which describes similar fears in the Netherlands.

And that is why I have always been less keen on the European project than most Liberals. For that project is all about harmonisation and rationalisation, whereas I believe the Liberal Democrats should be the party of the local and the particular.

Nor does it help the European cause in Britain that we have been left as spectators of someone else's referendum, waiting to see our fate decided.

Crewe and Nantwich by-election on 22 May

Or so the BBC says.

And Iain Dale is not impressed:

It's unprecedented to call a by election before the funeral of the previous MP has taken place.

Headline of the Day

You can rely on the Shropshire Star:

Cheesemaking giant dies, aged 88

BritBlog Roundup 167

This week with added Amused Cynicism.

Lembit and Gabriela in Rome

All part of the service.

Search of the Day

Someone at the BBC has just Googled for "brian paddick" round the horne.

Sigh.

It was Hugh Paddick - though Wikipedia claims they are distantly related.

The perils of taking your fox up the aisle

My latest New Statesman column is up on the magazine's website.