Harper Simon: Wishes and Stars

The other day I was playing a CD of tracks by modern singer-songwriters that had been given away free by a magazine. It was on in the background while I was doing something else, so I wasn't listening too closely.

But one of the songs caught my attention. Here was someone who has been listening to Paul Simon, I thought.

Well he had, because the singer turned out to be Paul Simon's son.

As Sophie Heawood wrote in The Times last year:

Born in New York in 1972, Harper was named after his mother, Peggy Harper, who had married Paul Simon two years previously, in the year that Simon and Garfunkel split up ... His parents divorced when Harper was only a few years old, and Paul released Still Crazy After All These Years, inspired by the break-up.

So he is a late developer but, as Heawood discusses, that is not unusual in the sons of big music stars.

This song is pretty and sweet, though it is not hard to find some ropey performances by Harper Simon elsewhere on Youtube, so perhaps the studio is kind to him.

Does he sound like his father on purpose? Perhaps not.

I recall seeing footage of Liam Botham bowling during his brief cricket career. He looked exactly like his father. But, uncannily, he looked exactly like Ian Botham had when he first appeared on the test scene, complete with a pronounced check in his run a couple of strides before he reached the crease.

When Ian Botham ironed that out he became a much faster bowler. Liam cannot have seen him bowl like that. And if had modelled his action on his father's, it would surely have been on the action he had when he was bowling at his best.

Oh, and despite what the song says, Harper Simon never travelled to Graceland with his father.

Six of the Best 141

Paula Keaveney reports back from the Liberal Democrats' Spring Conference, which was held in Sheffield this weekend.

Someone else who went to Sheffield is John Healey, Labour's shadow health spokesman. Olly Grender, writing for the New Statesman website, hopes he learned from the experience: "John Healey came with a typical 'blood up the walls' statement already prepared. Instead he found a party that is business like, considered and professional. Perhaps he can go back to his colleagues and tell them there are other ways to oppose."

This is a lesson that some of the protesters outside the conference need to learn too, argues Caron's Musings.

Mark Thompson's Blog attended what was billed as a "fair, impartial AV referendum debate" in Reading. It turned out to be a waste of his time.

Archbishop Cranmer asks why Roman Catholic priests who join the Church of England receive so much less publicity than CofE clergymen who move the other way.

Have you ever wondered how many nipples there are in the National Gallery? I know I have. Well, Londonist has the answer. "The results show that Flemish painting, as typified by Rubens, are the most nudish in European art collected by the National Gallery. However, other regions, most notably the Italian peninsula contribute a greater overall number. 274 examples of exposure can be found around the gallery, with men and women almost equally outgoing."

Aaron Porter, Jonathan Ashworth and Leicester South

There is great excitement tonight at reports that Aaron Porter may seek the Labour nomination for the Leicester South by-election. Maybe this is just an attempt by his far-left opponents in the National Union of Students to discredit him. After all, it usually takes a good two years for former NUS hacks to re-emerge as Labour MPs.

If the reports are true, I suspect that having him as Labour candidate would turn out to be one of those ideas that seems very clever at the time and very silly ever afterwards. And whether or not it would be good for Labour, it would certainly be bad for Master Porter, who already risk overexposure at a tender age.

But there is another interesting story about Labour and Leicester South.

As I blogged the other day, Labour insiders say that Ed Miliband's PR chief Jonathan Ashworth is the frontrunner for the nomination. Certainly, Rory Palmer - one of the most prominent local candidates mentioned - is now out of the running having accepted the post of Sir Peter Soulsby's deputy - assuming that Soulsby wins the election for Mayor in May.

This is interesting because Ashworth is married to Emilie Oldknow - Gordon Brown even attended their wedding. And Emilie Oldknow is the Labour Party's "regional director" for the East Midlands.

Can it really be, as I have heard suggested, that Oldknow is in charge of the Labour selection process in Leicester South and that her name is on the bottom of the letter that is sent out to prospective candidates?

Later. Aaron Potter has tweeted saying he will not be seeking the Labour candidacy.

Thoughts on the Lib Dem leadership's defeat on health

I am pretty much a Lib Dem loyalist these days, even if my membership of the Liberator collective still alarms some of the party's great and good.

But I was pleased to see the leadership defeated in the health debate in Sheffield today. Nick Clegg's statement after the vote - "Yes to reform of the NHS. But no to privatisation of the NHS" - is fine with me. And if the movers of the amendment were simply defending professional interests or the status quo, I would not support them.

For me the key point against the government plan for the NHS was made in an article by Andrew George in this morning's Indpendent:

It hands extensive powers, and most of the NHS budget, to a narrow group of private contractors – GPs, some of whom are horrified at being turned into NHS managers.

Exactly so.

Incidentally, I don't find the point that these plans were not included in the Lib Dem manifesto or even the Coalition agreement quite as damning as the proposers of the motion expect us to. It is early days, but being in government throws up all sorts of unforeseeable events and problems. Governing cannot be a Bennite process of implementing a previously agreed programme come what may.

Nor do I have an instinctive dislike of private providers in the NHS. But there must be democratic oversight of health. That surely is the point Liberals should insist on.

Trivial Fact of the Day with H.G. Wells

There was an article on H.G. Wells by David Lodge in the Guardian this morning, which mentioned Moura Budberg, but this is even more interesting.

Joseph Wells, the father of the writer, played cricket for Kent. He made only eight appearances for the county - according to the Wikipedia entry for H.G. Wells, his career was cut short by a broken thigh - but in that time he became the first man to take four wickets in four consecutive balls in first-class cricket.

And according to the British Listed Buildings entry for the former cricket ball factory in the grounds of the Paddocks at Leigh in Kent, the Wells were cousins of the Duke family. Duke cricket balls are still used in England's home test matches.

Are the London Docklands the new Homeward?

I don't usually go to the Liberal Democrat Spring Conference: too much travel, not enough conference. True, this year it is only up the line in Sheffield, but I am at busy at work and, as a pre-merger Liberal, I still regard it as an unsound SDP innovation.

So this morning I rose early and pushed my way through the crowd of urchins gathered to cheer famous Liberal Democrats as their trains passed through Market Harborough railway station. But I travelled south and went to the exhibition Churchill and the Anarchists at the London Docklands Museum.

It turned out to be a little smaller than I expected, but still fascinating. And the London Docklands Museum is well worth a visit in any case. (You have until 10 April, if you want to see the exhibition yourself.)

Some of the Docklands buildings now look like the worst of 1980s kitsch, but there is still an excitement to the area and in particular to the juxtaposition of old and new.

But something troubled me: where had I seen it all before? Then I remembered:

Uncle is an elephant. He's immensely rich, and he's a B.A. He dresses well, generally in a purple dressing-gown, and often rides about on a traction engine, which he prefers to a car.

He lives in a house called Homeward, which is hard to describe, but try to think of about a hundred skyscrapers all joined together and surrounded by a moat with a drawbridge over it, and you'll get some idea of it. The towers are of many, and there are bathing pools and gardens among them, also switchback railways running from tower to tower, and water-chutes from top to bottom.

Many dwarfs live in the top storeys. They pay rent to Uncle every Saturday. It's only a farthing a week, but it mounts up when there are thousands of dwarfs.

That is the opening of Uncle by the Revd J.P. Martin. When the Docklands Light Railway makes a sudden, unexpected turn and climb to reach the station at West India Quay, you really do feel as though you are in Homeward.

I also took the train out to Beckton. With its romantic-sounding intermediate stations like Gallions Reach, I hoped it would give good views of the river and have the atmosphere of the last chapters of Great Expectations - or at least show me a bit of London railway history. But the area has been redeveloped and the line completely rebuilt with cuttings and flyovers.

Perhaps the line to Woolwich Arsenal would have given me more of what I was seeking, but I doubt it. Anyway, there is more about the wonderful Uncle books elsewhere on this blog.

Where the Meerkat Harborough money is going

When the twinning of Market Harborough with Meerkovo was announced with only a day's notice it was always likely to prove a bit of a damp squib.

And that is how it turned out. As the Harborough Mail reported at the time:

The Meeerkat Harborough road sign erected in town as part of a publicity stunt had to be taken down early after it emerged it had been put up without permission. ...

The sign at the Kettering Road entrance to the town was changed to Meerkat Harborough at 9.30am and was meant to stay up all day.

But it emerged this afternoon that organisers of the stunt did not have permission to put up the sign and it was taken down as a result.

Anyway, the way the £5000 the town got from Compare the Market as part of this PR stunt has now been announced.

Again from the Harborough Mail:

A total of £2,000 will be donated to the Harborough Screen project which is working towards bringing a cinema to the town.

£2,000 will be given to community radio station, Harborough FM. The remaining £1,000 will go towards the Carnival and Arts Fresco committees.

These are all good causes, and at least the Meerkat Harborough sign has been preserved. The Mail says it will be displayed in the town's Market Hall (Shurely "Meerkat Hall"? - Ed.)

Calder on Air: Jamie's Dream School

My column from today's Liberal Democrat News.

This was going to be the last word on modern education - and Jamie Oliver's project in particular. Somehow it never happened and I had to fill up the column with other things.

I can claim to have been one of the first to compare Top Gear to Last of the Summer Wine.

In their Dreams

According to Save the Children, over 72 million children are growing up today without an education. In Britain we have the opposite problem: many teenagers are obliged to attend school when they clearly have no wish to be there. At least that was my conclusion from watching the first episode of Jamie’s Dream School (Channel 4).

As I have pointed out before, nothing is real on television and this series seems particularly contrived. When Gareth Malone did something similar last year he taught in a real school – even if we ultimately learned nothing more than that primary school boys respond well to a charismatic male teacher. But Jamie Oliver’s students were recruited through press advertisements, which suggests they may be more interested in fame than education.

And his teachers may be “brilliant”, but such people rarely make good teachers. I remember from my chess-playing days that grandmasters had no idea how little we club and county players knew about the game compared to them.

Not that anyone could teach this lot anything. Stripped of their traditional weapons of sarcasm and physical violence, Jamie Oliver’s celebrity teachers can only make despairing and largely unsuccessful appeals for fair play. It is a good thing you can’t believe anything on television, because as a picture of a generation this was deeply depressing.

You could say that these teenagers would be better off at work: let them come to education later in life if they want to. Certainly, I would like to see money put into adult education to give those who were too lazy or unhappy or stroppy to do themselves justice at school a second chance. This would be a better use of funds than abolishing university tuition fees.

The trouble is that the problem with these teenagers is not their lack or qualifications: it is their inability to listen and unwillingness to accept that anyone can know more than they do. And that makes them unemployable too.

******

It is a cliché to remark on the parallels between Top Gear (BBC1) and Last of the Summer Wine, but they are remarkably close. There is the tall one who likes telling the others what to do (Jeremy Clarkson/Foggy Dewhurst), the quiet, sensible one (James May/Clegg ) and the small one who is made to risk his life in dangerous contraptions (Richard Hammond/Compo).

Roy Clarke’s whimsical style of writing has never been to my taste, but Summer Wine did have an appealing sadness in its early days: the sadness of retired men reduced to the status of naughty schoolboys because they have nothing to do and nowhere to go. Years, decades before the series ended, that pathos was to be found only in its theme tune. But it went on and on, becoming increasingly contrived.

I foresee a similar fate for Top Gear. Their insulting of the Mexican nation was widely attacked as unpleasant bullying, but no one asked why they had to import an American prejudice unless they were running out of ideas.

Recent BBC advertising campaigns have billed the presenters as “boys” or, absurdly, “the kids on the street who never miss a beat”. But I can see them still on the air, 30 years from now, when that “we’re not middle aged: look, we’ve got really shaggy hair” act is not going to fool anybody.

******

What have they done to MasterChef (BBC1)? It is now a cross between X Factor and The Apprentice with a bit of vegetable preparation thrown in. It has lost the audience participation that made the early rounds interesting. We could all take the invention test and decide what we would have cooked if faced with those ingredients.

And then there are all the tears and emotion. If you want to be a chef that much, go to catering college. You don’t have to win a television contest to do it.

The shorter Jacqui Smith

The Liberal Democrats are to be condemned for not overturning my policy more thoroughly.

The runners and riders for the Labour nomination in Leicester South

Who will be the Labour candidate in the Leicester South by-election and thus the bookies' favourite to be the constituency's next MP?

Labour's internal politics in the city are notoriously faction ridden and a post on LabourList says:

With such a short selection period there is a real sense of unease within the constituency. Local party members, activists and likely candidates are already talking about the race as a foregone conclusion with real concern over the likelihood of a candidate being parachuted into the constituency. There is particular concern as to whether the NEC will shortlist prominent local candidates. Labour Party members in Leicester South are holding their breath for a fair and open contest.

I am not sure the "holding their breath" metaphor quite works here. Still, LabourList goes on to list a dozen people, from Leicester and beyond, who may put their names forward. They include Jonathan Ashworth, described as a "close personal friend and ally of Ed Miliband (and current Head of Party Relations for the leader)".

Nominations close on Monday and the Labour candidate for the by-election will be announced on Saturday 19 March.

Headline of the Day

Well done to BBC News for:

New Gloucestershire cheese rolling plans announced

I am also pleased to see that the report below quotes a member of the organising committee called Richard Jefferies.

New research reveals the threat UKIP poses to the Tories and Lib Dems

Back in September 2009 I suggested:

If Cameron does win the next election it is easy to imagine defections to UKIP - at least in the blogosphere - once he begins to make the compromises that become inevitable in power.

UKIP could also emerge as a threat to the Tories in Westminster by-elections.

You heard it here first.

The scale of the threat that UKIP now poses to the Conservatives has been revealed by researchers from the University of Leicester. In The UK Independence Party: analysing its candidates and supporters, Philip Lynch, Richard Whitaker and Gemma Loomes argue:

The advent of a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition presents UKIP with an opportunity not only to persuade Eurosceptic Conservatives to lend UKIP their votes at the next European elections, but also to translate these strategic voters into committed UKIP supporters. Farage has positioned UKIP to challenge the Conservatives on a range of centre right policies and to exploit dissatisfaction with the main parties.

Those who voted UKIP in 2009 but returned to the Conservatives at the general election may be disappointed by the dilution of Conservative Euroscepticism seen in the dropping of the manifesto commitment to repatriate powers from the EU and opposition to an in-out referendum.

If the Alternative Vote is used for Westminster election, UKIP would expect to gain first preference votes from those voters, primarily Conservatives, who support UKIP in European but not general elections, but would still fall short of winning a seat at Westminster.

A press release from the university quotes the researchers as saying:

"The 2014 European elections will give Eurosceptic Conservatives the chance to express dissatisfaction with the Tories for ditching their manifesto commitment to repatriate policies from Brussels and any perceived failure to oppose EU economic governance and rulings by the European Court of Justice and European Court of Human Rights.

"But the advent of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition also gives UKIP the opportunity, in domestic elections, to exploit popular concerns about immigration and crime, as it appears to have done successfully in Barnsley Central and in the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election, where UKIP finished fourth.

"As a party that attracts protest votes, UKIP is well-positioned to benefit from those who might have given such a vote to the Lib Dems in the past but who no longer want to since the party has been in government. Those who dislike the BNP but are unhappy with the three biggest parties may also see UKIP as worthy of their protest vote."

Success for UKIP would also strengthen the position of Tory headbangers who argue that the Conservative Party would be more popular if only it were more right wing.

Let Lord Bonkers be your agony uncle

A reminder that Lord Bonkers will be answering readers' letters in the next issue of Liberator.

He has already heard from Anxious of Notts and Auld Leftie of Desborough, but there is still room for your problem too.

GUEST POST Why I caged my son: The Love Outdoor Play campaign

Daniel Raven-Ellison lives in London and is a lead member of The Geography Collective, a partnership of geography teachers, artists, explorers and academics

Many of children’s geographies are being severely eroded. Parent-imposed cuts to their freedom to play outdoors have been well documented in the media. At the same time and in Ofsted’s own words “geography is in decline in many schools”. The combined degradation of many young people’s experiences and understanding of their place and connections to the world is a toxic and noxious combination.

At home
Having the freedom to play outdoors can improve the well-being of children and their communities. Barely a month goes by without an academic paper or newspaper reminding us that outdoor play is good for the physical and mental health of children or supports key learning about risk, creativity and communication. The idea of 'nature deficit disorder' is also finding growing support.

Despite the constant messaging in the mainstream media that many families are too worried to let their children play out, the fear of other adults, cars and mud are just too strong to give their children more freedom. This fear is a snowballing and infectious problem which eats away at the social capital in many communities.

When my son fell off his bike and cut his knee I watched from a distance as two men walked by without offering help; a reaction that distressed my then 7-year-old even further. Furthermore, in my local area there is a shortage of children walking to and playing in the park together, crucial if we are to allow him to make the journey himself.



While the decisions that lead to children being kept inside the home instead of playing out are complex, the public debate around this issue remains too simple. The way I see it, stronger geographical knowledge and understanding of local areas is needed to inform the decisions we make about children’s safety in the community.

Judgements about how much freedom children should have put too much emphasis on possible dangers instead of weighing overall benefits against risk. There is too much fear of ‘stranger danger’ and directly linked to this, not enough trust in members of the community. The last government has a lot to answer for here, not least with the CRB checks system.

Research from Play England shows several major reasons why children are not being allowed to enjoy outdoor play. In particular they identified parents’ fear of being judged by neighbours (37 per cent) and concern that their children are too noisy and may bother neighbours (55 per cent). It was this research that inspired us to start a campaign called Love Outdoor Play. The idea of the campaign is simple and is now supported by over 70 national charities, businesses and well known authors.

Love Outdoor Play Manifesto: Having the freedom to play outdoors improves the well-being of children and their communities. Together, we are building a visible community to support reasonably safe exploration, adventure and play. Wherever you see a Love Outdoor Play sticker or symbol, you’ll find people who welcome play and are looking out for young people.

This is the ‘Big Society’ at work. Every few months we organise a ‘community print run’ of stickers. This approach takes advantage of the economies of scale which exist in printing by crowd funding the run in advance. Two of these have taken place so far and in the most recent one 700 large stickers were printed and distributed. The Love Outdoor Play sticker is more than your usual sticker. It’s a symbol that shows:

• Understanding of the importance of outdoor play for the well-being of individuals and communities
• Communities that welcome and are creating space for outdoor play
• Freedom and independence for young people to learn and have fun
• Responsibility within communities to care for one another

Clearly stickers are not the only solution, but they can help to increase support for the political, economic, environmental and social steps that could be introduced to improve outdoor play, exploration and adventure. In other words, they can be used to start a conversation that could lead to more efforts like Playing Out in Bristol.

The symbol is available under a creative commons licence so anyone is allowed to use it for non-commercial use. As a direct result of this The Children’s Centre on the Isle of Man has organised with a local dairy to have the symbol printed on milk cartons. It is also being used in a major project being launched in April to map places to play in the UK. It is our hope that this symbol will become a universal symbol to welcome outdoor play.

At school
I love history. I love historians. History and geography cannot be separated and I would go so far as to say that historians are historical geographers. It does however always frustrate me that the likes of David Starkey and Simon Schama get so much airtime on Question Time and other public arenas. It’s about time other social scientists are given opportunities to offer their opinions including great geographers such Doreen Massey, Danny Dorling, Kye Askins or Joe Smith. The Conservatives have been complicit in a very public and constant support of historians, but they need to make space in public and in the curriculum for geography too.

As the chief executive of the Geographical Association David Lambert has said “without geography, the world would be a mystery to us” and that “Geography is one of humanity's big ideas. It is concerned with producing and communicating knowledge about ourselves in the world. Now that we have entered a period in which human beings can shape the Earth on a large scale – even destroy all life on it – engaging young people with knowledge about the planet they occupy has never been more vital”.

While geography is struggling in many schools the overall picture is complex and the subject needs to be supported and invested in. If young people are to grow up being able to make sense of major environmental issues, economic opportunities and the causes of conflict they need to have a working knowledge of how the world ‘fits together’. In no other subject will you find arts, sciences, literacy and numeracy, contemporary and historical, local and international themes being learned about together in perfect synergy as frequently as in geography.

Central to this geographical learning is giving children the opportunity to participate in experiential learning (actually doing things) in the real world (outside the classroom). This means making it easier for teachers to lead learning outdoors may it be in the school grounds, in their local community or travelling further afield. It also means making much better use of the time children spend on holiday, especially if during term time.

I believe children should be able to take absence of leave from school to go on family holidays, but if during school time they should be expected to complete learning projects and a new code should be created in school registers to reflect this requirement.

Children must be given more freedom to learn about their place in the world and offered the tools and support needed to make sense of it. While increased technological connectivity, availability of knowledge and more affordable travel can all create a sense of availability and awareness, if we are to have an empathetic, creative and effective community we must invest in young people’s geographies.

To support positive and creative outdoor play while learning through geography we have created Mission:Explore, a series of children’s books, a website and an iPhone app that encourage children (and families) to explore and play outdoors through asking questions about the world in which they live. We think it is positive for children to speak to and learn from people in their community and this is reflected in the project. All royalties from the first book are invested in free copies for deprived children.

Why did I lock my son up in a cage? To symbolically represent the current situation for many children in the UK. While there are amazing and safe places to play on their doorsteps, children are all but effectively caged indoors. Its time more was done to support a more ‘free-range’ childhood in which children are allowed to learn and have fun from being outdoors.

The Geography Collective, a partnership of geography teachers, artists, explorers and academics, is the creator of Mission:Explore, a series of children’s books, website and iPhone app that encourages outdoor play. It also manages the Love Outdoor Play campaign.

More information at:

• http://www.geographycollective.co.uk/ @GeoCollective
• http://www.missionexplore.co.uk/ @MissionExplore
• http://www.loveoutdoorplay.net/ @LoveOutdoorPlay

London King's Cross c.1962

britishrailways.tv

David Cameron vs the headbangers

Back in the early 1980s there were many Labour activists who were convinced that the party had been defeated by Margaret Thatcher because it had not been socialist enough. I never quite understood the logic of that, but it was widely believed.

Today we see a mirror image of this argument among some Conservatives. The lustre is going off David Cameron, they insist, because he has not been right-wing enough.

A good example comes from Simon Heffer on the Daily Telegraph site this evening:

Much of the disaffection among voters is bred of the feeling that Mr Cameron has taken his party to the Left not simply to accommodate its new friends, but because that is what the Prime Minister and his cronies would in any case want. All the talk of deficit reduction and swingeing cuts simply means public spending increasing less quickly than was planned.

In short, Simon Heffer is the new Eric Heffer.

The conclusion I draw is that David Cameron needs the Liberal Democrats to protect him from the headbangers. We should not be afraid to exploit his weakness.

Six of the Best 140

Richard Morris take A View from Ham Common and finds he rather likes Stephen Williams' plan for distributing shares in the banks that were rescued by the taxpayer: "the government may well get a greater return on its investment than a 'conventional' privatisation as well, and everybody, not just those with capital to invest, owns the banks".

A Scottish Liberal reflects on a year of blogging.

"Hundreds of witnesses and suspects have already been interviewed, right up to the highest levels in the former HBOS, as part of what has been described as 'the largest fraud investigation in UK history' by one of the police officers involved." Naked Capitalism on a story that has barely been covered in the mainstream media.

Isabel Ashdown considers Twitter etiquette: when should you follow and when should you unfollow?

"Take a tour with an ex miner around Snibston's former colliery buildings, visit a restored mill at Hough Hill at Swannington, search for the houses built from giant bricks at Measham, or find the framework knitters' cottages with long narrow windows in Melbourne." Go Leicestershire invites us to explore the industrial heritage of North West Leicestershire and South Derbyshire.

Meanwhile, Ancient Hackney has found three stone circles in the borough.

Write a guest post for Liberal England

Don't forget that Liberal England is now accepting guest posts. So far eight have appeared:

• In praise of slow government - Simon Beard
• Children and the surveillance state: Will the Coalition keep its word? - Terri Dowty
• Standards matter in higher education, not just participation rates - Anonymous
• A Woking class hero is something to be - Lisa Harding
• The campaign for a Robin Hood Tax - Ian Sullivan
• The limits of the Big Society - Martin Veart
• Can hyperlocal news sites be the future of journalism? - Niall Sullivan
• How Edward Stourton misunderstood The Orange Book - Simon Titley 

If you would like to write one yourself, please send me an email so we can discuss your idea. I am chiefly interested in political posts, but this blog is noted for its eclectic range of interests...

 

I am also happy to receive suggestions of links to include in my regular Six of the Best feature.

Stephen Williams proposes giving bank shares to every British adult

The connection between the Liberal Democrat think tank CentreForum and the concerns of the wider party has sometimes been difficult to discern. So it is good to see them publishing Getting Your Share of the Banks: Giving the banks back to the people by the Lib Dem MP Stephen Williams.

The pamphlet endorses a plan, drawn up by the corporate finance firm Portman Capital Partners, under which every British adult would be given shares in the banks that were rescued by the government. As the Daily Telegraph says:

Under the plan, each UK citizen could receive about 1,450 shares in RBS and 440 in Lloyds – worth a total of more than £900 at current market prices.

"Every citizen would have the same rights as shareholders at the moment, so they'd have the rights to get the company annual report. They could turn up at the AGM," Mr Williams told the BBC this morning.

"What might happen, for instance, is there could be shareholder associations set up of citizens who own these shares, who will put pressure on the banks to change their behaviour. Banks and all other companies are meant to be owned by their shareholders and to respond to their shareholders' wishes."

The idea of these shareholders associations is attractive, but I suspect that most shareholders would sooner or later take the money, as happened when the building societies were demutualised. And, given the pressure on public finances at present, there is a case for the government getting every penny it can for these bank shares when it comes to sell them.

But I find this plan attractive. It is, as I heard Stephen Williams say on television this evening, a way of ensuring that poorer people, whose taxes helped to bail our the banks, see some benefit when the shares are sold. If the are simply sold on the open market, this will not happen.

You can download the full pamphlet from the CentreForum site.

British Pie Week 7-13 March 2011

Two links to mark British Pie Week:

• First, the website of the august Melton Mowbray Pork Pie Association;
• Second, a recipe for Shropshire fidget pie.