Something has gone wrong with the Pupil Premium

There are good schools and there are bad schools. The good schools tend to have a disproportionate number of children from wealthier families.

In part this is almost a tautology: children from poorer backgrounds tend to bring behavioural or motivational problems with them that make teaching harder. And in larger part it is a reflection of the effect of good schools on house prices: if a school becomes known for its quality and maintains it then after a while only wealthy families will be able to afford to live in its catchment area.

The pupil premium was first suggested by Professor Julian Le Grand in the 1980s as a way of tackling this problem. And that was certainly how it was seen by both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats before the Coalition came to power.

Here, for instance, is a Guardian article from 2008 that discusses a report on the subject from Le Grand and the Conservative think-tank Policy Exchange:

The report suggests that a pupil premium might stop schools trying to covertly select more able students by providing an incentive to admit pupils from the toughest backgrounds. 

"A pupil premium would see extra money attached to students from deprived backgrounds," it says. "Schools that take large numbers of such students would be better off, giving them some additional resources to educate harder to teach children." 

"If these resources were used successfully middle-class families would start to be attracted to the school, and schools in wealthier areas might broaden their admissions criteria to attract higher value pupils."

That was certainly my understanding of the Pupil Premium when I blogged about it the following year. And it led me to suggest that the greatest problem with the policy would be selling it to the middle-class parents who were paying for it while seeing their own children squeezed out of the better schools.

That understanding also meant, incidentally, that the Lib Dems would have to lose their hang ups about parental choice and to embrace Michael Gove's free schools - or at least some other way of bringing new suppliers into the maintained education sector.

Three years on, we have a Conservative—Liberal Democrat coalition government and the Pupil Premium is being implemented, but the understanding of it, at least in Lib Dem circles, seems rather different.

Here is a BBC report on Nick Clegg's speech to last year's Liberal Democrat Conference:

Secondary schools will be asked to volunteer to hold the summer schools, which could offer a fortnight of catch-up lessons in basic skills such as literacy for 100,000 pupils. 

The schools could also offer sports-based holiday projects for these 11-year-olds who have just left primary school. 

The £50m will allow the scheme to be run for one year - with the funding drawn from the pupil premium budget, which will help schools to provide extra support for disadvantaged pupils.

There is nothing here about choice or getting poorer children better schools. The Pupil Premium seems to have dwindled into a scheme that positions the poor child as a social problem who needs more money spent on him.

But if that child is in a bad school then it is hard to believe that another two weeks in the classroom or a bit more money for that school is going to make much difference. Perhaps it is the good schools that will run the summer schools, but the original idea of the Pupil Premium was to get poor children into good schools for their whole education, not just a fortnight.

And Nick Clegg seemed to grasp that this diminished Pupil Premium might not be so popular with the children to whom it is going to be applied in his admirable interview with children under the BBC School Report scheme. Having announced that money would be spent on summer schools, he realised that those interviewing him might not be too enthusiastic about attending them.

I am sure that summer schools could be good for children. And as Baden-Powell showed, if you get things right, children will come running.

But, as the it stands at the moment, the Pupil Premium seems to promise a world in which middle-class children in good schools go on holiday while working-class children in bad schools go to summer school.

As a Liberal (and as a former poor child) that is not a world I find particularly attractive.

Horsegate: Undercover police operative breaks silence

Love and Garbage reports:

Two undercover police officers who have spent the past few years masquerading as a retired Metropolitan Police Service pantomime horse have today broken their silence following the arrest of a horse trainer, 49, and a flame-haired woman and former newspaper editor who shall remain nameless in any official utterances from the Metropolitan Police, 43, at their Oxfordshire home.

It seems I was on to something.

Competition versus integration in the NHS: A panel debate

On 2 February the health charity The King's Fund held a panel debate under the title Competition versus integration in the NHS.

Taking part were the Fund's chief executive Chris Ham, Penny Dash, a partner at McKinsey & Company, and Julian Le Grand, Professor of Social Policy at the London School of Economics.

You can find videos of their contributions below, together with an interview with Richard Lewis, partner at Ernst & Young, that was conducted after the debate.

And, first of all, there is an interview with the Fund's director of policy Anna Young, which outlines the new proposals for competition in the healthcare market and questions whether competition really does improve quality of care.

Its original proposals to encourage competition in the NHS have been watered down, but this remains one of the issues at the heart of the current debate over the Health and Social Care Bill. So I hope these videos may do something to inform the debate within the Liberal Democrats.

The dark side of Eurovision: Forced evictions in Azerbaijan

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Simon Goldie has an early review of The Alternative View by Lembit Opik and Ed Joyce. The ideas expressed in the book sound interesting, but I am afraid I lost patience with Lembit some time ago, even though I voted for him as Lib Dem President when he stood against Simon Hughes.

"It is not possible to govern the nation well when the minor party of Coalition behaves like a student collective, reserving the right to withdraw support from legislation according to the whims of its unelected activists and a bizarre vote counting algorithm." I think it is fair to say that Graeme Archer, writing on the Daily Telegraph site, was not impressed by the Liberal Democrats' Spring Conference in Gateshead.

A Liberal MP who solves crimes and brings murders to justice? Steven Fielding writes on Lucy Beatrice Malleson's private detective hero Scott Egerton.

Anyone who moves in journalistic or social media circles in Leicester will know John Coster of Citizens' Eye. Here he is profiled by Derek Howie.

"There is an ethereal quality to many of Goss’ photographs taken in the grey light of dawn, with just a few early birds on their way to work and no traffic at all on the road yet. These are quiet pictures in which silence is only interrupted by the echo of footsteps." Spitalfields Life on Charles Goss's photographs of Bishopsgate a century ago.

Even older are the photographs of the Crystal Palace as it was re-erected in South London in 1854 on The Passion of Former Days.

The twisted moral logic of Eric Joyce

"You can't touch me, I'm an MP," Eric Joyce told the police when they were called to Strangers' bar. He wasn't wholly right, but he was certainly on to something.

If a member of the public had attacked two MPs and two local councillors they would have gone to prison. Joyce got off with a fine and community service.

And Joyce's announcement today that he is resigning from the Labour Party but holding on to his Commons seat seems to me to be the wrong way round.

Membership of a political party is not a reward for living a blameless life. Every party has plenty of members whom it would hesitate to put before the public as candidates, but that does not mean those members should leave the party.

But once you have been put forward as a candidate and elected then you do have certain obligations. And twatting two MPs and two councillors is a good sign that you have failed to fulfill them.

So Eric Joyce should resign as an MP, but no one should object to his remaining in the Labour Party.

Incidentally, this is not a party point. I had exactly the same thoughts when Mick Bates resigned from the Liberal Democrats after being convicted of assault (apparently before the party could throw him out) but kept his seat in the National Assembly for Wales.

Meanwhile, those who hanker after a power of recall should read this first.

Charles Darwin's Shrewsbury

Liberal Democrats need a health policy of their own

The Liberal Democrat Conference has voted by a narrow majority not to mandate our peers to vote for the Health & Social Care Bill as it currently stands.

But does the Lib Dem Conference mandate the party's elected and unelected representatives how to vote on individual pieces of legislation while the are passing through Westminster anyway? It makes party policy, of course, but that is rather a different thing.

So I found it hard to be as moved by events in Gateshead earlier today as the people who were there - and are still shouting about it on Twitter as I write. (Shirley Williams has gone from heroine to dupe within the last 24 hours, for those who are not following it.)

My own view on the Health and Social Care Bill remains that the Conservatives were foolish to bring in a flagship bill on health in the first place. I have blogged about this before.

But I share the mystification of David Boyle that so many Liberal Democrats attach such importance to maintaining untouched the bureaucratic NHS structure bequeathed to us by Labour. Much of what the bill proposes, such as giving GPs an enhanced role in commissioning, seems to me thoroughly sensible - even if it could have been done without the bill.

So I am puzzled by the assertion of the normally sensible Mark Thompson that the Lib Dems "will reap an electoral whirlwind" if the support the bill. I can seen that Labour will blame any future problems in the NHS on the bill, whether it has anything to do with them or not, but nowhere does Mark tell us why he thinks the outcome of the bill will be so dreadful in the eyes of voters.

My own chief concern with the bill was the original draft's removal of the secretary of state's obligation to provide a service. This is all the more important if you introduce more competition and local control into the NHS, because there has to be someone for people to appeal to if things are not working. But I am assured that this - or something that will mean the same if it comes to court - has been restored to the bill in the Lords.

David Boyle also puts his finger on what has been wrong with the Liberal Democrat to health and the NHS for so long:

For ten years, we failed to work out what a Liberal NHS might look like for the century ahead. When the new legislation was being drafted by the coalition, there was a vacuum where major Liberal thinking ought to have been. 

All we could do was to look back fondly to the way we imagined things to be a generation ago, and we clung to it manfully. All we could say about the NHS was – apart from the usual principles – what we didn’t want.

As one way forward, I would suggest we take seriously the proposal for "democratically controlled and clinically led" health boards that John Pugh makes in his new report A Way Through: NHS Reform without strife and upheaval.

Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs: Woolly Bully

Every one knows Woolly Bully by Sam the Sham...

Mind you, I work these days with people who have never used a telephone dial, so I had better that everyone of a certain age knows Woolly Bully by Sam the Sham. But who is Sam the Sham and what is the song about?

The classicbands page for Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs tells all.

Domingo Samudio was born near Dallas Texas to a Spanish speaking couple of Mexican decent. After a varied early career he found himself the front man for a band:

"By that time, everyone was calling me 'Sam', short for Samudio," said Domingo, "and what I was doing, fronting the band and cutting up was called 'shamming'. We got the rest of the name from the movie 'The Ten Commandments'. Old Ramses, the King of Egypt, looked pretty cool, so we decided to become The Pharaohs." 

The band got the chance to record, but their early efforts failed. In the summer of 1964, they went into the studio with a song that used the words "Hully Gully". When told by the record company that they couldn't use that phrase, Sam said, "OK, let's kick it off, and I'll make something up. "The name of my cat was 'Wooly Bully', so I started from there. 

The count down part of the song was also not planned. I was just goofing around and counted off in Tex-Mex. It just blew everybody away, and actually, I wanted it taken off the record. We did three takes, all of them different, and they took the first take and released it. It became the first American record to sell a million copies during the onslaught of the all the British groups." 

The lyrics of "Wooly Bully" were hard to understand, and some radio stations banned it, fearing that the words were suggestive. They weren't of course, and the record went on to sell more than three million copies. It was nominated for a Grammy award and was named 'Record of the Year' by Billboard Magazine in 1965

And it is ow wonder that those stations were confused:

The lyrics describe a conversation between "Hattie" and "Matty" concerning the American Bison and the desirability of developing dancing skills, although no attempt is made to synthesise these divergent topics.

So Woolly Bully was named after a cat and represents a TexMex interpretation by someone who looks like a refugee from Aladdin of Black rhythm and blues as reworked in 1960s Britain. I hope that is clear.

Oxford college plans to deprive Tur Langton of its village hall

This is Tur Langton village hall. It's not a thing of beauty, but in an age when there are so few facilities in most villages beyond private housing for the affluent, it is important to the community.

According to a report in the Leicester Mercury, the land the hall occupies may soon be redeveloped for housing by its landlord Merton College, Oxford. (Those who watched Michael Wood's The Story of England will know that the college is a major landowner in nearby Kibworth Harcourt.)

The position is a little complicated, but the Mercury quotes on of the village campaigners against the loss of he hall, Chris Weston, as follows:

Mr Weston said the village hall was built in 1912, and was acquired at agricultural land value by Merton College as part of a farm purchase in 1936. 

"Initially, the continued use of the site for the village hall was on the basis of an unwritten understanding between the previous owner and the college bursar," Mr Weston said. 

But a lease drawn up to regularise the situation in 1970 expired in March, 2010. In 2004, the college told the council that it was unlikely to renew the lease, but said no definite decision would be given until nearer the time.

Chris Weston, incidentally, was one of the more amiable Conservatives on Harborough District Council when I was a councillor too.

Another of the Tur Langton residents active in the campaign is Martin Corry, the former England rugby captain.

Because of the uncertainty over its future, there has been little work done on the village hall in recent years. But Chris Weston told the Mercury that "there is a large groundswell of support for renovating the existing hall to modern standards".

Merton College has offered a site for a new hall if villagers agree to the development of the old site. But Tur Langton is a small village and, particularly in the current economic climate, those villagers are unwilling to take on the fundraising that would be involved if they agreed to this.

The Mercury, incidentally, tried but failed to get a comment from Merton College on this affair.

Sometimes landlords are more generous. The picture below shows the former village hall in neighbouring East Langton. It was given to the village by my hero J.W. Logan, the Liberal MP for Harborough, in 1898. Logan lived in the village at East Langton Grange.

It was taken back from the villagers by Colonel Hignett when he bought the estate on Logan's death and is still a private house. But that's Tories for you.

The French are finally waking up to cricket

"If the French nobility had been capable of playing cricket with their peasants," the British historian G.M. Trevelyan once wrote, "their chateaux would never have been burnt."

Judging by a report in today's Mail on Sunday, the French have finally woken up to this:

Cricket is being introduced into the national curriculum for French primary schools, and enthusiasts hope the move will lead to cricket becoming a part of French culture. 

"We have far more open spaces here, so beautiful pitches will not be a problem and the French are certainly clever enough to understand the complicated rules," says Gilles Lefevre, an English teacher from Bordeaux, who learnt to love the game on holidays to the UK. 

"Culturally, cricket is all about the English but there is no reason at all why this game should not become a favourite here."

Dog thrown off Ludlow Town Council

At least I assume it has been.

Back in August 2007 I reported that Sarky, a 'borderline terrrier' belonging to Ludlow town councillor Mitch Mitchell, has now won the right to attend meetings with his master.

Now comes news that Mr Mitchell has been removed from the council after failing to attend a meeting for six months.

The South Shropshire Journal report does not say so, but I this presumably means that Sarky has also lost the right to attend meetings too.

The good news is that, according to the same report, you can see:

Mr Mitchell, known as Mitch ... six days a week on King Street in Ludlow belting out tunes on his pipe with faithful companion Sarky the dog at his side.

And he has a cat called Tommy too.

I assume that Ludlow's Mitch Mitchell is not the Mitch Mitchell who used to play drums for Jimi Hendrix, not least because the latter died in 2008.

Alexei Sayle on Zbigniew Cybulski

From an article on Polish cinema the great man wrote in last Saturday's Guardian:

This charismatic young actor styled his hair in a luxuriant black quiff, wore a leather biker jacket and tinted sunglasses. Later I read that he had to wear them because he'd fought in the Warsaw Uprising – the three month long insurrection against the Nazis – where the guerillas moved about in the sewers, so he couldn't take bright light. Which, even if it wasn't true, was a brilliant excuse to wear shades after dark. 

In Ashes and Diamonds Zbigniew Cybulski not only got to wear an outfit that was completely wrong for the period, but he also got to carry a German 9mm MP 38 submachine gun all the time – which was pretty much my dream. 

There was, too, an air of doomed romanticism around Cybulski, because the year before I came upon him he had, like James Dean, lost his life in an accident. Though unlike the Hollywood star, who was killed at the wheel of his Porsche, Cybulski died in true socialist fashion, running for a train.

Six of the Best 232

"When I was young and broke at Liberal Assemblies Viv often took me out for a meal. We kept up our conference meals almost without a break up to and including the Conference at Birmingham in 2011. I know I was not the only one who benefited from his support and encouragement and it is sad that no more young folk will profit from Viv buying them a good meal and listening to their ideas." Birkdale Focus remembers Viv Bingham, who died this week.

Mark Pack is right to say that Chris Rennard is right to say that we should have power to choose MEPs.

A new law proposed in Western Australia would allow children as young as 12 to consent to sterilisation, electroconvulsive therapy and psychosurgery without their parents being told. Lester Holloway is rightly concerned.

Spiderplantland spent yesterday waiting for her uncle to die.

Perhaps not one for the squeamish: National Public Radio has the story and photographs of the world's heaviest flightless stick insect, rediscovered after being thought extinct for almost a century.

One of this blog's heroes is Richard Jefferies, but we are not biased. So here is a link to a site devoted to Swindon's other great literary son, Alfred Williams. A play devoted to him will be performed at the town's Phoenix Theatre between 15 and 17 March.

The Queen calls at Market Harborough

Yesterday the Queen began her Diamond Jubilee tour by visiting Leicester. Eschewing the Royal Train, she caught a scheduled service: the 10:15 from St Pancras.

This showed good judgement. The Nottingham trains that leave St Pancras at 15 minutes past the hour run non-stop until they reach Market Harborough. And there is usually plenty of room, though the Queen made sure of this by travelling first class.

Her majesty's good judgement did not extend as getting off at the first stop, but you can't have everything. So it was to Leicester that she went.

My view on the monarchy is pretty close to that of the Dowager Lady Bonkers, who recently said: "I wouldn't cross the street to see them, but I wouldn't vote to get rid of them."

There was at time when the Royal Family was at its most embarrassing when it was possible to think that a retired politician would make a more dignified job of it. It was difficult to imagine Willie Whitelaw, for instance, being on the front pages for having his toes sucked.

But in retrospect the low standing of the Royal Family was partly the result of the approach of the tabloid press, and Whitelaw was revealed to have been a bit of a lad after her died.

On Liberal Conspiracy today Mark Thompson complains that the monarchy is incompatible with a meritocracy. Maybe it is: certainly, it is a powerful symbol of the role that inherited wealth and position play in or society.

But I am not sure that a perfect meritocracy is so very desirable: it is easy to see such a society having no compassion for those who lack the ability to get on. And is Mark suggesting that we find the most talented person in Britain and make him or her head of state instead?

To me the great virtues of having a monarchy are that it separates the office of head of state from party politics and makes it possible to have as little reverence for the position as I do.

Welcome to Liberal Insight

Today has seen the launch of a new liberal think tank: Liberal Insight.

Introducing it on Liberal Democrat Voice, Tom Smith writes:

We face a fractured society with greater inequality, both of wealth and opportunity. We face existential threats to the welfare state and public services. Perhaps worst of all, we face a worrying disengagement not only from politics, but also from civil society, by a growing number of people. 

The Coalition provides liberals with an excellent opportunity to reverse this trend and some progress has already been made. The pupil premium, for example, is a perfect example of a far-sighted policy that tackles the causes, not just the symptoms, of social inequality. It will contribute to establishing the equality of opportunity that should be the cornerstone of any liberal society. 

We need to work out how to do better. How, for example, do we go beyond the pupil premium and reform the non-financial aspects of the education system? What would a liberal public healthcare system look like and how can we implement it in light of the Health and Social Care Bill? How can we best build local democratic institutions to deliver the real benefits that liberals have historically supported? How can we make sure governments here and abroad protect the environment and tackle our over-dependence on dwindling natural resources?

Nick Clegg to tell Liberal Democrats to stop looking back

The Deputy Prime Minister and Lib Dem leader will tell the party's Spring Conference today (Friday):

"We’ve made some difficult decisions, not all of them popular. But we made all of them with only one test in mind: What was the right thing to do for the country? 

"And now it is time to move on. To stop justifying being in Government and start advertising being in Government. To stop lamenting what might have been and start celebrating what is. To stop defending our decisions and start shouting our achievements from the rooftops. 

"We’re in Government, and it is a better Government for it. Fairer, freer and greener. 

"Lower taxes for working people. Fairer chances for our children. And the beginnings of a new, green economy that benefits everyone in every city, not just a few in the City of London. 

"So: no more looking back. You can’t drive if you’re only looking in the rear-view mirror."

Not great oratory, but I think this is the right message. As I said in my final House Points column for Liberal Democrat News, we Liberal Democrats should enjoy being in government, but I am not sure that enough of us do.

And Tim Farron says something similar in an article in today's Guardian:

But there is one thing that many Lib Dems must start to understand. When you join a political party, you must accept that ending up in power is an occupational hazard.

The Moon Under Water: Watford Central Station?

This is The Moon Under Water on Watford High Street. It is named after George Orwell's vision of the perfect pub, which he revealed in an Evening Standard column in 1946. Somehow I do not think he was envisaging the rise of J.D. Wetherspoon.

But there is a legend about The Moon Under Water: it is that it was intended to be the Metropolitan Railway's Watford terminus. The Wikipedia entry on Watford Met, for instance, says:

The original Watford Central station building was in Watford High Street, opposite the junction with Clarendon Road, and has known many guises. In the 1950s this was the Grange Furniture Store and the original Underground station canopy was still in evidence

and cites Charles Klapper's London's Lost Railways in support of this story.

But is it true? I'm not sure I quite believe the idea of the Metropolitan Railway building a station first and worrying about how it could get a railway to it later.

An article published in the Watford Observer in 2005 gives a more credible version of the history of The Moon Under Water.

First it describes the coming of the Metropolitan to Watford - the line opened in 1925:

The Metropolitan applied together with its GCR partner for powers to build a branch to Watford. Despite determined LNWR opposition, the route was authorised but it was fatally flawed from the outset. 

Watford Council had recently bought part of the Cassiobury Estate and objected to the proposed railway through the town park and recreation gardens. 

The price for their support of the Metropolitan's Bill was the removal of the last essential service of two-thirds of a mile of railway into the centre of Watford High Street.

But that was not the end of things:

An opportunity arose in 1927 for another route to extend the line into the centre of Watford. 

Through a third party, the Metropolitan was able to purchase an existing building at 44 Watford High Street together with two-and-a-half acres of backlands. 

The possibility of a single track extension in tunnel either from the existing station or following a diversionary route around the station was explored. 

Costs were extremely high and no Parliamentary powers were sought. The building was eventually leased out and was disposed of by London Transport in 1936.

So The Moon Under Water might have been the sight of Watford Central station, but it sounds from this as thought the Metropolitan never did any building on this site, merely leasing an existing building.

Unless, of course, you know different.

Headline of the Day

From The Press:

Archaeologists find human bones inside York Minster

Sylvia Pankhurst: Everything is Possible

More about this film on the Sylvia Pankhurst: Everything is Possible pages.

Nick Clegg interviewed by children from BBC School Report

There is a write up of this interview on the BBC website.

The BBC School Report:

gives 11-16 year-old students in the UK the chance to make their own news reports for a real audience. 

Using lesson plans and materials from this website, and with support from BBC staff and partners, teachers help students develop their journalistic skills to become School Reporters. 

In March, schools take part in an annual News Day, simultaneously creating video, audio and text-based news reports, and publishing them on a school website, to which the BBC aims to link. The next News Day is Thursday 15 March 2012.

Man sues Leicester City Council after injuring himself putting up health and safety sign

The headline says it all.

Hurry over to the Leicester Mercury for our Story of the Day.

International Women's Day: How water and sanitation impact women

From the WaterAid Facebook page:

International Women’s Day on March 8 makes us reflect on the extent to which the global water and sanitation crisis is a women’s issue. Women bear the brunt of water collection, suffer the most from the indignity of lacking access to sanitation, and as primary caregivers are impacted the most when children fall sick with water-related diseases. 

Fully involving women in community water and sanitation programs, as WaterAid does, ensures the programs meet their needs. It also helps equip women with the skills and confidence they need to tackle other development challenges in their community.

Five years ago... Bullingdon Matching Pairs

On 7 March 2007 I blogged:

Bloggerheads has turned the photo they tried to ban into a card game: Bullingdon Matching Pairs.

Beware: it's addictive.

The good news is that the game is still online.

Armenia withdraws from Eurovision Song Contest

... our main enemies are Armenians of the world and the hypocritical and corrupt politicians under their control

said the President of Azerbaijan, adopting the same tone as those who believe in a worldwide Jewish conspiracy.

As a result of these words Armenia has withdrawn from the Eurovision Song Contest, which is being held in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, in May.

There has long been tension between the two nations and, as BBC News reports:

Azerbaijani and Armenian forces fought a war over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh in the 1990s which left at least 25,000 people dead.

Nagorno-Karabakh is within Azerbaijan but most of its population is ethnically Armenian. The mother of the former world chess champion Garry Kasparov was an Armenian from the region.

Still, that's one less song for Engelbert to worry about.

European Commission withdraws racist advertisement

When I first saw this I had to check to see it wasn't a very glossy spoof. But it appears it is genuine.

And I am speechless.

As the Information Daily reports:

The European Commission has withdrawn a video clip promoting EU enlargement policy following racist complaints. 

The clip, Growing Together, was uploaded on YouTube last week and shows three men from China, India and Brazil using martial arts skills to fight a woman of European descent. When she multiplies herself to encircle the men, they let go of their weapons and the woman changes into the 12 stars on the European Union flag. 

Stefano Sannino, Director General of Enlargement for the European Commission, which commissioned and published the clip, said in a statement, ”We have received a lot of feedback on our latest video clip, including from people concerned about the message it was sending.”

It is hard not to agree with Sam Bowman on the Adam Smith Institute blog:

Critics of the EU are often accused of being "Little Englanders". In the light of rhetoric like this from the EU it's clear that the mindset behind the EU itself is little more than Little Englanderism writ large across the continent — still preoccupied with keeping out scary foreigners and closing Europe off from alien cultures.

Back to the drawing board, I think.

Why Michael Gove is preferable to David Blunkett or Estelle Morris

A few days ago Michael Gove announced that he is to scrap the regulations for school homework that David Blunkett introduced in 1998. I happen to have in front of me a Liberal Democrat News piece that I wrote that year. It was published on 16 October 1998.

This was a time when New Labour claimed to speak for the whole nation and accused anyone who disagreed with him of "cynicsm" - as though you could not have not have an honourable motive for disagreeing them.

So David Blunkett had recently talked about a "miserable bunch of sneering cynics" who opposed his policies. And Chris Whitehead, then the Chief Inspector of Schools, had added:

"I hope by the time we reach the millennium we shall have beaten the cynics and sneerers who rightly anger and depress David Blunkett."

And the Guardian report of Woodhead's speech began:

Chris Woodhead last night pledged to rid the teaching profession of the 'sneering cynics' criticised by the Education and Employment Secretary David Blunkett.

In my article I went on:

An irrational hatred of anyone who voices ideas which differ from government policy can be found throughout the new establishment. 

The other week a couple of educational psychologists published some research from Australia and New Zealand which cast doubt on the usefulness of giving children in primary schools. 

They also turned up a Board of Education report from 1937 which recommended a reduction in homework and none at all for children under 12. 

Did this new research lead to an informed debate? Just read the press cuttings. 

The Education Minister Estelle Morris said: "I totally disagree; there hasn't been a piece of research that I so fundamentally disagree with. I'm very disappointed with the conclusion of this report." 

Nick Seaton, from something called the Campaign for Real Education, said: "This will appeal to teachers who don't want to do any work." 

But the prize for the most considered response must to to Tino Perri from the education union NAS/UWT. He said, of Dr Richard Cowan, the prime author of the research: "He doesn't know what he is talking about, he's talking though a hole in his head."

Now, says the BBC reporting Gove's decision:

Head teachers in England are to be given greater discretion over how much homework their pupils are set. 

Education Secretary Michael Gove has scrapped the guidelines for home study introduced by Labour in 1998. 

It follows parents' complaints that too much homework is limiting family time and opportunities for play and sport. 

Education officials said head teachers should be able to make decisions free from "unnecessary bureaucratic guidance".

Gove has certainly made the right decision. And this little history lesson shows why I think he is a better education secretary than David Blunkett or Estelle Morris.

Looking for St Albans Abbey

Not the Abbey - you can't miss that - but St Albans Abbey railway station.

The branch from Watford Junction does not reach St Albans City, the station used by trains to St Pancras, but has its own little terminus on the edge of the city. St Albans Abbey station was not that well signposted when I looked for it on Saturday, but I liked this little clue I came across on the edge of the Abbey grounds.

And when I found it I was impressed that the line to Watford was electrified and had modern trains of a sensible length operating on it.

One thing that could be improved is the ticketing arrangements. There is nowhere to buy a ticket at St Albans Abbey station and they are not sold on the train, so you have to queue to pay at the excess fares window at Watford Junction.

This line is now looked after by a community rail partnership and there are plans to convert the line to light rail operation to allow a more regular and frequent service.

A search on the web reveals that the city used to have a third station, St Albans London Road, on a line to Hatfield that also used to reach St Albans Abbey.

Liveblogging Birmingham vs Chelsea

21:39 And Chelsea win 2-0. Not  a great game. Not a great live blog. But I did it and so did they.

21:39 Arsenal win 3-0 but lose 4-0 on aggregate.

21:36 Into injury time.

21:35 Essien on for Mata - chiefly to wind the clock down

21:30 The crowd lifting Birmingham and they are having a spell of pressure. But Cahill and Luiz look secure at the back.

21:27 Birmingham miss their best chance. Mutch is through but lifts it over the bar.

21:22 Torres sets up Sturridge who falls over the ball in front of goal. There is a theory gaining support that Sturridge looks great until he gets a scoring chance.

21:21 Frank Lampard comes on from Ramires.

21:20 A rare threat from Birmingham but Cahill deals with it very neatly.

21:18 Chelsea now looking good now. First to every ball and sweeping forward in numbers. A bit more sharpness up front and we could score several more.

21:15 Mata penalty saved. And Birmingham scramble the rebound away.

21:15 Torres makes space for himself with a nice move and is then pulled down. Penalty awarded!

21:11 Still 3-0 to Arsenal at the Emirates, but who cares?

21:09 Nice play but then Mata lives it way over the bar. There are more goals for Chelsea here if they keep up the pressure and keep their heads.

21:07 And suddenly you fancy Chelsea to win the whole tournament.

21:06 2-0. Scorcher from  Meireles!

21:05 Sturridge comes on for Kalou. That should make Chelsea stronger

21:04 Almost a second for Mata and Chelsea.

21:00 Mata scores! 1-0 to Chelsea

20:57 Chelsea start the second half well and look more likely to score now. Birmingham can't keep the ball when they do get it.

20:51 Second half kicks off. The commentator is threatening us with extra time and penalties.

20:49 Out-of-form Chelsea striker scores great goal.



20:39 During the interval let's remember happier times...

Chelsea, Peter Osgood and Swinging London

Chelsea were London's glamour club at the time, attracting a host of celebrity supporters. People like the actor David Hemmings, the photographer Terry O'Neill and, on occasion, Hollywood stars like Clint Eastwood and Steve McQueen, would regularly lunch at Alvaro's on the King's Road before making their way to Chelsea's ground, Stamford Bridge, to cheer on Osgood and company.

20:36 Ray Winstone is offering 8/1 on Torres to score.

20:34 0-0 at half time. Meet the new Chelsea, same as the old Chelsea - so far.

20:32 Torres turns brilliantly but then shoots wide.

20:31 This may not be the most exciting game being played this evening. Arsenal are currently leading AC Milan 3-0 (though they are still 4-3 behind on aggregate.

20:26 And then Birmingham do threaten and Cech has to tip a header over.

20:23 Birmingham have not threatened for a while now. A lot of aggression from Chelsea, but quality is still lacking.

20:20 There's ia bit more bite to Chelsea's play now.

20:15 Zigic booked for a challenge on Cahill. I think he was looking for someone to kick.

20:13 Cech has to make his first save - a Birmingham goal looks more likely than a Chelsea one at the moment.

20:07 Chelsea are committed but their passing is not sharp enough.

20:05 Chelsea fans chanting for Mourinho and against Benitez.

Then Ramirez bursts into the box but shoots over.

20:03 Zigic and Luiz tangle twice and Zigic ends up with blood on his face. As Norman St John Stevas would have said, it's a man's game.

19:59 In Birmingham are giving rather better than they get.

19:54 All very open so far and Birmingham giving as good as they get.

19:49 Great chance squandered as Mata does not pass to Kalou.

19:47 Birmingham kick off.

19:40 Banner in the crowd:

Play for the shirt, not your egos

19:37 The risotto is doing fine.

So Chelsea are now helmed by Roberto Di Matteo and Eddie Newton. The management combination that made West Bromwich Albion the most feared side in West Bromwich.

19:32 While we are waiting for the kick off, here is another appeal to Jose Mourinho...



19:29 I am attempting to do this while cooking a risotto, which may be a bit tricky.

Anyway, chelseafc.com has the team news:

Chelsea will line-up in the following 4-3-3 formation:

1 Petr Cech (c)
2 Branislav Ivanovic
24 Gary Cahill
4 David Luiz
34 Ryan Bertrand
7 Ramires
12 John Mikel Obi
16 Raul Meireles
21 Salomon Kalou
9 Fernando Torres
10 Juan Mata

Subs: 40 Hilario, 26 John Terry, 5 Michael Essien, 8 Frank Lampard, 23 Daniel Sturridge, 11 Didier Drogba, 18 Romelu Lukaku.

Birmingham are expected to line up in the following 4-3-3 formation:

Doyle; Spector, Davies (c), Ibanez, N'Daw; Elliott, Mutch, Gomis; Rooney, Zigic, Redmond.

Subs: Myhill, Burke, Valles, Packwood, Jervis, Reilly, King.


19:25 Let us begin with an appeal to Jose Mourinho...



19:21 I have liveblogged a Chelsea game from the television once before. It was a cup replay at Southend which we eventually won comfortably. The game took place towards the end of Phil Scolari's reign and was chiefly notable for a serious injury to Joe Cole - one from which his Chelsea and England career never really recovered.

Roger Helmer is a hypocrite

...as the new UKIP MEP for the East Midlands, who has just defected from the Conservative Party, cheerfully admits on the front page of his own website:

I have always argued that a parliamentarian who finds himself no longer able to support the Party should stand aside in favour of another Conservative, and I have roundly criticised former colleagues who failed to do so, like Bill Newton Dunn and Edward McMillan Scott.

There follows a piece of casuistry intended to show that his case is different, but I do not follow the logic of it.

At the root of all this nonsense lies the dreadful list system under which European elections are fought in this country. Chris Rennard, writing on PoliticsHome, has some sensible suggestions for improving it and diluting the power it gives party bosses in particular.

Roger Helmer of all people, given his run in with the Tory chair Baroness Warsi, should support this.

Kit Malthouse joins the phone-hacking deniers

From BBC News:

London Deputy Mayor Kit Malthouse has been urged to resign after reportedly saying too many police resources were allocated to the phone-hacking inquiry. 

Labour MP Chris Bryant made the call in reaction to Sir Paul Stevenson's comments to the Leveson Inquiry. 

The former Scotland Yard commissioner said Mr Malthouse, who is responsible for policing in London, told him the investigation should be scaled back. 

Mr Malthouse said his role was to probe the allocation of police resources.

I am all in favour of people resigning, but let us not forget that Malthouse is only the latest in a long line of figures who have underestimated the importance of phone-hacking or rubbished those who are concerned about it.

Let me see, there's... David Cameron, Jenny Jones, Boris Johnson, Guido Fawkes and Mathew d'Ancona.

Farewell Viv Bingham

Sad news this evening. Viv Bingham, who was President of the Liberal Party in 1981-2, has died.

Stephen Glenn reminds us that:

Viv stood for Westminster election on five occasions the two 1974 elections for Heywood and Royton, 1979 for Hazel Grove, 1983 for West Derbyshire and finally in 2005 for Stalybridge as well as standing in the first contested European elections in 1979.

He also posts a video of Viv in fine form at the Liberal Democrat Conference only last autumn.

My own fondest is memory of Vic is joining him on the panel of a well-refreshed game of Just a Minute at the Glee Club some years ago. Chaired my David Grace, the panel consisted of Viv, Lembit Opik, me (in the character or Lord Bonkers) and, I think, Jackie Ballard.

That lack of stuffiness was central to the old Liberal Party Assemblies, even if it has never quite been to Liberal Democrat Conferences, and there was no better personification of it than Viv.

Benskins the Hertfordshire brewer

On my way to Watford Met on Saturday I passed through St Albans. I came across this ghost sign on the front of a house in the shadow on the Abbey. It looks as though it has not been a pub for some time.

I remember that when I was a little boy in Hemel Hempstead many of the pubs were owned by Benskins. It turns out that this Watford brewer was at one time the biggest in Hertfordshire, but an article in Brewery History documents its demise:

By the mid-1950s, Benskins had 636 pubs and hotels, and 16 off-licences. But there were bigger fish about looking to expand and on 6th February 1957 rumours started of a take-over bid for the Watford company. The next day the identity of the bidder was revealed - Ind Coope & Allsopp of Romford and Burton. On 13th March the bid was officially accepted and Benskins became part of (what was then) the biggest brewing concern in Britain, with over 4.000 pubs. 

The Watford brewery kept on brewing, though as the 1960s wore on the Benskins name slowly began to vanish from the pubs, Eventually Benkins Bitter was replaced by Ind Coope Superdraught in about 1970, and the brewery was finally closed with the minimum of fuss in 1972. It was demolished seven years later.

The Benskins name was later revived, but the beer was not brewed in Hertfordshire.

John Pugh on the future of the NHS

John Pugh, Lib Dem MP for Southport and co-chair of the party's backbench health and social care committee, has written a paper on the future of the NHS.

As his own website reports, John Pugh

proposes that the cluster groups of Primary Care Trusts that now temporarily run the local NHS could be the foundation for democratically controlled and clinically led Health Boards similar to those found in Northern Ireland. Such boards would control health and social care avoiding the expensive and disjointed shunting of elderly patients between the NHS and Social Services.

The MP states that he has received a very positive response to his proposals from clinical leaders and says: "It is important that we map out a new direction for the NHS that does not repeat the tired old prescription of more competition and the futile effort to treat the country's health service like a market.

You can download the whole paper from the link above.

It is good to see some Lib Dem thinking on health that goes beyond calls to "Save the NHS", "Kill the Bill" and defend the status quo.

Coupled with the report on the future of policing that Tom Brake published the other day, it suggests that intellectual life is stirring on the party's backbenches.

Pennsylvania juvenile justice scandal: Judge got 28 years

Three years ago I wrote several posts on this blog and a House Points column in Liberal Democrat News to a scandal in Pennsylvania.

Judges in juvenile courts were revealed to be taking payments from the operators of juvenile detention facilities in return for ensuring that a steady supply of youngsters were given custodial sentences even if their offences did not warrant them. You can find all those posts labelled Pennsylvania scandal on this blog.

This afternoon Neil Monnery wrote about the case, revealing that last year Mark Ciavarella Jnr, a former judge, was sentenced to 28 years for his part in the affair.

He went on to quote Ciaverella, who seemed to blame the media, rather than his own criminality, for his fall:

Despite being found guilty the former judge wasn’t repentent and decided to turn on the media for fanning the flames that led to his conviction by the jury, “Those three words (kids for cash) made me the personification of evil,” he told the court, according to the Associated Press. “They made me toxic and caused a public uproar the likes of which this community has never seen.” 

So instead of apologising he was incensed that the media had dubbed it the ‘kids for cash’ scandal. Despite you know the fact that he was taking cash in return for sending kids to a juvenile detention facility when it wasn’t deserved. I actually think it might have been a fair headline and catchphrase by the media you know…

Neil does not give a source for these quotes, but you can find them in a USA Today news report from August 2011.

The Pennsylvania experience exposes in the starkest way possible the dangers of turning the judicial system into another profit-making industry. Those dangers were exposed by Nils Christie in his book Crime Control as Industry (reviewed here on the Prison Policy Initiative site):

Christie traces the extent to which crime control has come to dominate the economic structure by absorbing the unemployed into the roles of keeper and kept and then supplying services to each. Limited by space, let me highlight two of Christie's many sharp observations. First Christie argues that the applicable political economy to describe prisons is not slavery, but of the old work-houses, where the objective was not profit for the State, but for private parties to relieve the State of its unwanted population at the lowest cost possible. 

The second sharp observation is that justice itself has been mechanized to cope with the influx of raw materials and remove a democratic restraint upon growth. Mandatory minimums and the sentencing guidelines have served to remove discretion from judges, turning them into little more than secretaries for the legislature. While judges are in a unique position to learn details about victims and the accused; and could adopt sentences to match the needs of the offender and the community; that takes time. Time costs money, and the industry's conveyor must be kept moving, hence the removal of judge's discretion.

Six of the Best 231

Richard Kemp shares my doubts about the idea of elected mayors, but here he explains why he has put himself forward as the Liberal Democrat candidate for the role in Liverpool.

"Emlyn Hooson who died last week was my first parliamentary boss." Sandy Walkington remembers his days as a chocolate soldier.

"Occupy will have to find another way forward. It isn’t the kind of protest in which an achievable goal is linked to a symbolic nuisance, so that when the authorities see reason everyone can go home. Its demands have been much bigger, and they’ve been backed by the continuing physical presence of people obstinately taking up space. In this respect it’s much more like the Greenham Common peace camps, or Brian Haw’s one-man encampment in Parliament Square, than a traditional demonstration or sit-in." Writing on the London Review of Books blog, Phil Edwards discusses the dissolution Occupy London Stock Exchange protesters' camp.

The Gunnersbury Triangle ought to be an area where District Line trains disappear without trace. In reality, it is an area of ancient woodland that was cut off by railway lines in the 19th century and has been undisturbed ever since. When I lived in West London in the 1980s the battle to save it was fought and won. Now Councillor Gary Malcolm from Ealing writes on the latest threat to it.

James Fenton, writing for the New York Review of Books, looks at the world of Downton Abbey.

English Buildings visits Much Marcle in Herefordshire and a roadside garage that began life as a World War I aircraft hangar.

Engelbert Humperdinck: Les Bicyclettes de Belsize

What with the death of Davy Jones from the Monkees and the announcement that Engelbert Humperdinck is to sing the British Eurovision in May, this has been a Back to the Sixties week.

I did think of choosing a Monkees song as a tribute, but when I looked into I found that all the ones I liked seemed to have been sung by Mickey Dolenz rather than Jones. So let me just send you to the tribute to him that Andrew Hickey has written on Mindless Ones.

So Engelbert it is.

Les Bicyclettes de Belsize is the title song from a short 1969 film. The film is a little cheesy, a little whimsical but still fun - you can buy it on a disc with the wonderful The London That Nobody Knows. And the song is annoyingly catchy.

If my younger readers want to know who Englebert Humperdinck is, Wikipedia is their friend:

As Arnold Dorsey, Humperdinck was one of ten children born in Madras, India, to British Army officer Mervyn Dorsey and his wife Olive. Humperdinck is an Anglo-Indian, his mother being of Indian heritage. His family moved to Leicester, England, when he was 10. 

He soon showed an interest in music and began learning the saxophone. By the early 1950s he was playing saxophone in nightclubs, but he is believed not to have tried singing until he was 17, when friends coaxed him into entering a pub contest. His impression of Jerry Lewis prompted friends to begin calling him "Gerry Dorsey," a name he worked under for almost a decade.

His luck changed in 1965 when he changed his name to that of a 19th century German opera composer and signed with Tom Jones' manager.

Though he was hugely successful in America in the 1960s, there was perhaps he was always in Tom Jones's shadow, at least in Britain. Which makes it interesting that yesterday I heard someone say that there had been rumours that Jones was going to do Eurovision this year.

Whatever the truth of that, this video shows Engelbert in his pomp. And he has to be a better British entrant than the X-Factor third placers we have tried lately. He can sing, for one thing.

Let's end on a local note...

Engelbert has lived for many years on a large estate at Great Glen between Market Harborough and Leicester, but it seems success had not spoilt his family.

A local taxi-driver once told me that he was booked by Engelbert's son one evening. He had visions of an evening spent outside a Leicester nightspot with the meter running. But it turned out that the lad wanted nothing more than a trip to Kibworth working men's club for a drink with some old friends.

Watford Metropolitan Station

Looking like a larger version of the other early 20th century house in Cassiobury Park Avenue, this is Watford Station.

One of the more distant outposts of the London Underground, it was opened in 1925. The Metropolitan Railway, who built this branch from Moor Park, envisaged extending the line further to Watford town centre (more of that in a later post), but that never happened. Though if you look back at the station building from beyond the ticket barriers you can see that it was built so there was room for the lines to continue underneath it.

Now Watford Station is threatened with closure because another way of extending the branch has been found. Under the Croxley Rail Link project a new viaduct will be built to link the Metropolitan to the old British Rail branch from Watford Junction to Croxley Green.

This will enable Underground trains to call at Watford High Street station in the town centre and then reach the West Coast Mainline at Watford Junction.

Charming as the current Metropolitan Station is, that will provide a far better service for most passengers. Certainly, part of its charm when I visited it this afternoon (and took a trip to Moor Park and back) was how quiet it was.

The current estimate is that Metropolitan trains will reach Watford Junction in January 2016 and that Watford Metropolitan Station will close at that date.

A local Liberal Democrat councillor, reports the Watford Observer, is campaigning to have it kept open as the terminus for a service to and from another Metropolitan outpost, Amersham. There must be scope for such a service - indeed it is hard to see why it is not being run already - but unless there would be problems with capacity at Watford Junction, it looks as though that service would be more use if ran from there too.

Roger Helmer joins UKIP and lets me and Rupert Matthews down

As you will appreciate, the news that Roger Helmer, one of the Conservative MEPs for the East Midlands, has joined UKIP is a bitter blow to me. It means there is now no chance of Rupert Matthews taking his place in Brussels.

At a stroke, I have been robbed of a rich seam of comic post reporting Matthews' adventures in the European Parliament - they might even had made him Commissioner for Outer Space. Now that prospect has been swept away from me.

Regular readers will recall (new ones should start here) that Helmer had intended to resign at the start of this year, assuming that Matthews would take his place as the highest unelected candidate on the Conservative list at the last European elections.

But Tory HQ obviously had doubt about the cut of Matthews' jib. I have reason to believe that these related more to do with his consorting with golliwogs and Etheridges than his enthusiasm for ghosts and UFOs. So they made it clear that there was no guarantee that Matthews would take Helmer's place if he resigned, and Helmer decided not to resign as a result.

Helmer was clearly furious about this. In today's Daily Mail he talks of the "deliberate obstinacy and recalcitrance" of the party's chairman Baroness Warsi:

"She has brought this on herself. I couldn’t make her do the right thing, but I can make her regret doing the wrong thing."

I have more time for Baroness Warsi than is fashionable in Liberal Democrat circles and it is easy to see that a male Conservative of Helmer's generation could have problems dealing with a party chairman who is a woman, from the working class, a Muslim and from a Pakistani background even before it got to having political differences.

My own view is that the situation shows how undesirable the list system is. If Helmer wants to resign the identity of his successor should be decided by the voters, not by the Conservative Party or Helmer himself.

Rupert Matthews, whether out of loyalty or prudence, has taken a very different line. Giles McNeill has the statement he issued today:

I am shocked and disappointed at Roger Helmer’s decision to betray his public promises to the people of the East Midlands and his private promises to his colleagues. 

Since Roger announced that he was standing down as the MEP, many people in the East Midlands have spent a considerable amount of time and effort in preparing for Roger’s retirement, my taking his place in Brussels and the unavoidable upheavals that this would have entailed. I myself was looking forward very much to representing the people of the East Midlands and the Conservative Party in the European Parliament. It is unfortunate that all this time and effort has been rendered useless by Roger’s actions. 

I wish to make it clear that I have no intention of following Roger to UKIP and that I will continue to serve the Conservative Party as loyally as I have in the 28 years since I joined the party. I will be working hard to ensure the return of Conservative candidates in the local elections in May and at the next European Election in 2014.

But for the time being, there will be more desk space at Three Crowns Yard.

My music videos for 2011

I started choosing a Sunday music video when I finally got broadband access in October 2007. You can find the choices for 2007 and 2008 here, for 2009 here and for 2010 here. I had intented to add this 2011 summary between Christmas and New Year, but I was not well.

Some of these videos have disappeared since I posted them. Where possible, I have edited the post and add an alternative version of the same song. But the moral is clear: enjoy these videos while they are still hot.

2 January 2011 Squeeze: Up the Junction
9 January 2011 The Merseys: Sorrow
16 January 2011 Comus: Diana
23 January 2011 Ginger Baker's Airforce: Don't Care
30 January 2011 Pulp: This is Hardcore

6 February 2011 Gary Moore: Parisienne Walkways
13 February 2011 Mississippi Sheiks: I've Got Blood in My Eyes for You
20 February 2011 The Zombies: Care of Cell 44
27 February 2011 Georges Delerue: Theme from Our Mother's House

6 March 2011 Fake Obsession: Who Painted the Moon Black?
13 March 2011 Harper Simon: Wishes and Stars
20 March 2011 The Shadows: Wonderful Land
27 March 2011 Spencer Davis Group: Stevie's Blues

3 April 2011 Billy Idol: White Wedding
10 April 2011 Haircut 100: Fantastic Day
17 April 2011 The Doors: Light My Fire
24 April 2011 Heron: Lord and Master

1 May 2011 Graham Nash & David Crosby: Marrakesh Express
8 May 2011 So Sad About Us: Peter Townshend & Paul Weller
15 May 2011 Stevie Wonder: Never Had a Dream Come True
22 May 2011 The Zombies: Breathe Out, Breathe In
29 May 2011 Zdob shi Zdub: Bunǎ Dimineaţa

5 June 2011 Rumer: Come to me High
12 June 2011 Mick Jagger: Memo from Turner
19 June 2011 Urban Voodoo Machine: Goodbye to Another Year
26 June 2011 The Watersons: Hal-an-Tow

3 July 2011 The Liver Birds: Peanut Butter
10 July 2011 The Deighton Family: Travelling Light
17 July 2011 Detroit Emeralds: Feel the Need
24 July 2011 Amy Winehouse: You Know I'm No Good
31 July 2011 Traffic: Feelin' Good

7 August 2011 Van Morrison: The Bright Side of the Road
14 August 2011 Dando Shaft: Rain
21 August 2011 Jethro Tull: Cross-Eyed Mary
28 August 2011 Joan Armatrading: Willow

4 September 2011 The Bonzos: Can Blue Men Sing the Whites?
11 September 2011 The Zombies: Old and Wise
18 September 2011 The Rassoodocks: Let's Go
25 September 2011 Lord Kitchener: London is the Place for Me

2 October 2011 Lemonheads: I'll Do It Anyway
9 October 2011 Bert Jansch: Angie
16 October 2011 Half Man Half Biscuit: Descent of the Stiperstones
23 October 2011 The Jam: Thick as Thieves
30 October 2011 The Rockingbirds: Restless

6 November 2011 Morrissey: That's Entertainment
13 November 2011 Janis Ian: At Seventeen
20 November 2011 Steve Marriott: All or Nothing
27 November 2011 Split Enz: I Got You

4 December 2011 The Mamas and the Papas: California Dreamin'
11 December 2011 Judie Tzuke: For You
18 December 2011 Jeff Buckley: Lover You Should've Come Over
25 December 2011 A full edition of Top of the Pops from 1970

The man who wrote Galway Bay lived in Leicester

We all know the boys from the NYPD Choir were singing "Galway Bay", but who wrote the song?

I found out in my lunch hour this week when I came across this blue plaque in Prebend Street, off London Road, in Leicester. And Leicester Chronicler tells us all about Arthur Colahan:

Arthur Colahan was born in Enniskillen on August 12th 1884, the eldest son of Nicholas and Lizzie Colahan. He was a boarder at Mungret College in Limerick, and then enrolled at University College Dublin in 1900 where he gained an Arts Degree. He took up medicine and graduated from Queen's College, Galway in 1913. He was a member of The Literary and Debating Society at his college and took part in many college plays where his skill as a composer and song writer was first revealed. 

He began a medical career in the County Infirmary in Galway. When World War I broke out Colahan enlisted in the British Army's Medical Corps and served in India ... After the war, he settled in Leicester where he worked as a neurological specialist in the police and prison services. His hobby was music, and he wrote songs with fine memorable melodies including Until Gods Day, Cade Ring, Asthoreen Bawn, Macushla Mine, The Kylemore Pass and the beautiful Galway Bay ... 

Dr Colahan died at his Leicester home at 9 Prebend Street off London Road on 15 September 1952 and his remains were moved to Galway for burial in the family grave.

Take it away, Bing.

Chess in Schools and Communities

In recent days the Liberal Democrat MEPs Bill Newton Dunn and Graham Watson have both written about meeting the former world champion Garry Kasparov, who is campaigning to get chess included in school curricula across Europe.

I don't know about that, but I am a great believer in chess clubs schools, as readers of my recent Guardian article will recall.

If you want some practical help in setting one up yourself, the people to contact are Chess in Schools and Communities. I wrote about them in that article and they have kindly put a link to it on their website.

Kibworth shop is the best independent bookseller in the Midlands and Wales

Congratulations to Debbie James and The Bookshop, Kibworth, for being named Independent Bookseller of the Year for the Midlands and Wales Region.

As The Bookseller says:

The newest shop among the regional winners is The Bookshop Kibworth, which owner Debbie James opened in November 2009, with the judges particularly praising its community focus. James called the regional win a “champagne moment”. 

She said: “It’s been an extraordinary two years. I have been lucky to have been supported by people from the community from the beginning, who were thrilled to finally have a bookshop in their town.”

You can read more about Debbie and her shop in the Leicester Mercury.

Horsegate: Now the secret service is implicated

Stupid Headline of the Day

Red faces at the Daily Telegraph for:

Witchcraft is growing threat to children in Britain, warn police

Later. Incredibly, this is the Telegraph's front page...

Where are the maverick English footballers of the 1970s?

I didn't watch much of England's game last night, but what struck me was the team. It didn't look that inspiring, yet it was hard to think of a fit player who should have been in it but was not selected.

Forty years ago every club in the old First Division had a player who ought to be in the England team - at least in the opinion of its fans.

And often they were mavericks, both in their lifestyle and style of play. I am thinking of people like Rodney Marsh, Stan Bowles, Frank Worthington, Charlie George, Duncan McKenzie and Alan Hudson. They were all immensely talented players who did not enjoy much of an international career.

I sense that this breed was already dying out by the 1980s. You can say that Glen Hoddle should have had the England team built around him, but in the end he got far more caps than any of those players from the 1970s.

And after that there were Nigel Clough and Matt Le Tissier, but precious few other examples. The last player I can remember thinking of in this category is Joe Cole, but he ended up as a regular choice for England.

Nostalgia is always a tempting trap, and I certainly don't follow the game as closely as I did when I was a boy, but I think I am on to something. Where are the players who ought to play for England and don't today?