Stephen Twigg's faulty thinking on free schools

Stephen Twigg made an effort to move on Labour's policy on free schools in his speech this week, but he is not there yet.

Take his complaint that:

Under Michael Gove’s policy, millions have been spent opening schools in areas with a surplus of places, while children elsewhere face a shortage of places.

I pointed out the flaw in this argument when Labour was still in power:

Surplus capacity will tend to exist in areas where the schools are bad, because parents there are more likely to pay to send their children to independent schools or to make more effort to work the state system to get them into schools further away.

And I concluded:

As things stand, the government will allow new schools only in areas where parents are perfectly happy with the existing provision.

Somewhere at the root of this faulty reasoning is Labour tractor-production approach to social problems: all children are the same and all schools are the same and what matters is the total numbers. There is no sense that children and their parents are individuals and a dynamic force with goals and wishes of their own.

The same faulty thinking lay behind this complaint from the same speech:

Under Michael Gove’s policy, increasing numbers of schools are able to employ unqualified teachers. When we know the key to standards is the quality of teaching, this is the wrong approach.

That sounded great until it was revealed that the Labour MP Tristram Hunt is in the habit of teaching the off primary school class on the Spanish Armada.

It's not just that this is a neat ad hominem argument against Labour: it's that I cannot imagine anyone more likely to inspire a class than Hunt.

If free schools use their freedoms to bring in people to the classroom from outside the teaching profession, then I am all in favour of it.

Despite Twigg's efforts, Labour still gives the impression that it is speaking for the teaching profession rather than children and their parents.

British Stone Skimming Championships to take place near Bishop's Castle

From the Shropshire Star:

The lake at Walcot Hall in Lydbury North, near Bishop’s Castle, will be the venue for the unusual tournament on June 30 and about 100 competitors are expected to try their hands. 

Spectators are welcome but the action will not just be confined to the skimmers, with other events planned for the day, all with a stoney theme.

Should you wish to watch or take part, contact details can be found here.

Craig Murray on Haute de la Garenne

Craig Murray wrote on his blog last year:

I receive, constantly, emails from people wishing me to take up various cases on my blog and furnishing information. 95% of the time I do not publish because I am not able to investigate fully (there is just one of me) and I do not know the source: the exclusives on this blog come mostly from my access to well-placed sources I have known for years through my past diplomatic career, and trust. 

A notable proportion of the cases brought to me by those I do not know involve alleged paedophile rings. I was sent information about Haut de la Garenne for years, which named a string of senior people alleged to take advantage of organised paedophilia in the care home. Among the judges, politicians and aristocracy, there was indeed the name of Jimmy Savile. 

I have to admit it was not just that I could not prove any of it, I was actively sceptical about what seemed a random list of names of the famous. We now know for certain that Savile visited the place several times. The whole Haut De La Garenne investigation always seemed to obscure more than it revealed; I do hope it is now re-opened, and taken away from the local Jersey police.

It is also worth watching the video included in this post...

J.W. Logan in the Spectator

Last week I wrote a short post promoting the new, free online Spectator Archive. As I suspected, it is going to be a priceless tool for research.

Take this blog's hero J.W. Logan, Liberal MP for Harborough in the good old days.

I once wrote a post quoting James Moore's The Transformation of Urban Liberalism:

In the Harborough constituency Liberal lecturers were frequently refused access to Anglican schoolrooms where they wished to hold meetings. Eventually the Liberal Association became so frustrated with the situation that parliamentary candidate J.W. Logan built himself a portable meeting room which he took from village to village. The mobile contraption - dubbed the "Free Speech Hall" - obviously worked and following its introduction the local clergy were less reluctant to hire out school halls to Liberal candidates.

But there was more to Free Speech Hall than that. Here is a short piece from the Spectator, published after Logan was first elected to parliament, winning a by-election in 1891 (and reprsentative of the slightly hit-and-miss scanning that its archive offers):

Mr. Logan, the Gladstonian candidate, may well pride himself on his tactics. He has been in the field for nearly three years ; has taken round a van, in which Gladstonian meetings have been held under cover; and he has instructed his rural voters in the art of using the ballot by providing them with the means of playing at polling in the various villages of the Harborough Division. He has reaped his reward, and will possibly gather in a rich aftermath at the General Election

This suggests parallels between Victorian Liberalism and campaigning in poor Black communities in American today. It also suggests a solution to the problem of low turnout in inner-city areas in Britain today.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: “I Made Eastleigh Happen”

The new issue of Liberator is with subscribers, or at least on its way, so it is time to spend another week at the demi-paradise that is Bonkers Hall in Rutland.

Monday

A package arrives in the post. I find it to contain a rather stylish badge, which I consider wearing while I go about my business on the old demesne. Then I read what it says – “I Made Eastleigh Happen” – and ring for my secretary.

“Could you forward this to Dartmoor or Wormwood Scrubs or wherever the poor fellow is at the moment?” I ask him. “It was obviously meant for Huhne.”

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

Cameron will go to Kazakhstan despite dubious record on rights

The Independent wins Headline of the Day.

I hope the shaky grammar is for comic effect.

Northampton Cathedral

The Cathedral Church of St Mary and St Thomas stands in Barrack Road. As Borough Council page about the area says:

Barrack Road provides a splendid entry into the town from the north and is a perfect example of Northampton’s grand era of town building in the 19th century. The conservation area extends along a half kilometre of attractive Georgian terraces, once the proud homes of Northampton’s ‘stout and wealthy’ citizens. In the 1930's it was widely regarded as being the finest approach to Northampton, and the prestige associated with this regal terraced avenue has remained. 

The name of Barrack Road is derived from the Gibraltar Garrison, the headquarters of which were established in the late 18th century as a cavalry barracks, and its large Irish contingent is thought partly to be the reason for the location of the Roman Catholic Cathedral in the vicinity.

The cathedral has its origins in a chapel built by Pugin in 1844 and extended by one of his sons 20 years later. Some of this original building was lost when the cathedral was enlarged after the Second World War.

But I am still glad that Northampton has a cathedral. And the story about the barracks being a factor in its siting may well be true as the first Roman Catholic cathedral in York was placed in the heart of an area of poor Irish immigrants.

I looked around St Mary and St Thomas on Saturday afternoon and had the place to myself.

"Over the summer, your child could fall two months behind other classmates!"

Last year I wrote a sceptical (and rather repetitive) post about summer schools, which have turned out to be a large part of Nick Clegg's much-heralded pupil premium:

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.

I need not have worried about the class angle. Today in leafy Market Harborough I saw a poster advertising a tutoring service under the slogan "STOP THE SUMMER SLIDE". It went on: "Over the summer, your child could fall 2 months behind other classmates! We can help..."

There is research suggesting that children from poorer homes can fall behind over the summer, but what we see here is a generalised anxiety. The danger is a sort of educational arms race that will see children who are doing perfectly well under current arrangements denied a proper summer holiday.

Guardian wins Correction of the Day

From the Guardian:

An episode of Radio 4's In Our Time programme reviewed in Friday's G2 ... was not last week's episode as the article suggested. It was an archive episode that was broadcast in 2003, which the reviewer listened to via the BBC's website.

Always remember, folks: journalists are trained professionals and we bloggers are just amateurs.

Still, the Corrections and Clarifications column is one of the Guardian's most entertaining features, so I shan't be so churlish as to reveal that this howler was perpetrated by Nosheen Iqbal, "Acting Culture Editor of guardian.co.uk/culture and G2's radio critic".

Six of the Best 361

Liberator's blog looks at who is likely to get the next batch of Liberal Democrat peerages.

"The pub wasn't turning over anything like the previous tenants figures suggested and almost from the off we knew we were going to struggle. As I waived my husband off for what was supposed to be his last tour of Afghanistan, both he and I knew it wouldn't be the last time I would be doing this. It turned out that way too ... Even now, over four years later, he is still in Afghanistan and we can’t see a way for our family to be together." A post on PUBlicity shows why the campaign against pubcos is right.

David Boyle is discussing his new book "Broke: Who Killed the Middle Classes" at several literary events this summer. More details on The Real Blog.

Spies now have too much influence over government. Says who? Says John le Carré in the Guardian.

Transpontine examines the days when Jessica Mitford lived in Rotherhithe.

"Their solution was to fill the first edition, on pages which would be replaced by match reports later, with transfer gossip stories. 'Eventually Murdoch got another printing press in the north so they could get the football in first time,' says a Fleet Street veteran. 'Then people complained that they missed the transfer stories! So they got back in and have been getting in ever since.'" FourFourTwo.com explains how those unfounded transfer rumours came to fill our newspapers.

The Villagers: Nothing Arrived

The Villagers are an Irish indie folk bands whose first album was nominated for the Mercury Prize. This track is taken from their second.

Pitchfork says:

"Nothing Arrived" situates a pat lyrical resolution ... amidst easygoing pianos and acoustics like a wordy rendering of Travis ca. 12 Memories.

But I like it.

Liberty Hall, Washington Street, Northampton

I spent the afternoon exploring Semilong and Kingsthorpe in Northampton and was intrigued by this building. It seemed a little too industrial for a church or a school. My bet was a public baths, but I was not convinced.

When I got home I found its history on the Cinema Treasures site:

The former Liberty Hall is located in Kingsthorpe, to the north of the town centre, at the junction of Washington Street and Lincoln Street. Pictures were shown here as early as 1898, but on a temporary basis. The 1910 Kelly’s Guide to Northampton, lists it as Liberty Hall, secretary: Patrick Flynn. Writing in the August 1975 Cinema Theatre Association Bulletin, Marcus Eavis referred to it as the Kingsthorpe Picture Palace ‘definitely in business before December 1912’. Local sources also note it as Kingsthorpe Electric Palace, with an opening date of 21st October 1912. 

Around 1919 the venue was known as the Gem Cinema, advertised locally as “Little, but Good!”, with F. Haines as proprietor and W. G. Jolley the resident manager. Prices ranged from 3d to 1s with 2 weekly matinees. In 1928 the proprietor and resident manager was C. Goff but the Gem Cinema must have closed shortly after as there are no references to it operating by 1930. 

For many years the former cinema has been used by nearby ice-cream manufacturer E. Gallone Ltd. for servicing their vans, it is often possible to see a number of the familiar yellow and cream vehicles parked either outside or on the ramp inside the premises.

Sure enough, you can see an ice cream van in the picture I took today. And the antique petrol pumps in the yard are worth a mention too.

But I suspect that Liberty Hall had a life before it became a cinema. A church mission hall perhaps? Or does its name point to a connection with the Liberal Party?

The Great Little Bowden Allotment Fire of 2013: The Scouts help out

A heart-warming follow up to the drama of two weeks ago can be found in the Harborough Mail:

An arson attack which destroyed sheds, fence panels and trees and which will result in one man leaving his allotment has inspired community-spirited scouts to step in. 

Duncan Elliott, leader at Bowden Scouts, contacted the Mail after reading about the plight of Peter Pickering and his dad Joe last week. 

Peter Pickering has decided to give up his own allotment after nearly 40 years following the arson attack at the allotments near Little Bowden Recreation Ground, off Scotland Road in Harborough, on Friday, May 31 ... 

Mr Elliott said that it is a win-win situation as the work the Scouts will do will not only help Mr Pickering but will also help them attain their community badges. 

A key part of the badge is providing help in the community, something that this action by Bowden Scouts will certainly achieve. 

There will be between 10 and 15 scouts taking part in the clean-up and Peter Pickering said he expects the majority of their work to include removing debris left over from the fire. Burnt timber has already been removed. ...

Peter Pickering’s 90-year-old dad Joe, of Foxton, has now revisited his decision to quit the allotments and will continue.

Defectors and the Liberal Party 1910-2010

Last month Dr Alun Wyburn-Powell, the author of  Defectors and the Liberal Party 1910-2010, kindly wrote me a guest post on the history of defections from the Liberal Party and the Liberal Democrats.

Now his book has been reviewed by Nicholas Thomason for the LSE Review of Books:

For the majority of Liberal MPs who joined Labour, there was to be no happy ending however. Over half of the forty-seven defectors found their move to be unsuccessful. Confronted with a tight-knit culture of trade unionism, strict party discipline and often poverty; the largely wealthy, professional Liberals struggled to integrate. 

Friendships were difficult to forge and the lament of Scott, one of the Disillusioned Progressives, summed up the feelings of many: “…I have joined the Labour Party – but I have found few friends there + [sic] am looked upon with suspicious eyes. It is a poor result…’

All Saints, Sutton Bassett

Isn't this sweet?

The tiny church of All Saints is in Sutton Bassett. It was locked last Saturday - though the addresses where you could call for a key were listed on the door - but you can read about the interior on The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland.

Although Sutton Bassett is a small village, a few houses and the Queen's Head strung out along one road, it used to have a Methodist chapel too. And what with the beer festival, a vintage bus parked on the road and an ambulance trying to get through the throng, it even had  traffic jam while I was there.

Where do the Liberal Democrats go from here?

I’m buggered if I know.

That’s not really enough, is it? No wonder this blog is slipping down the rankings. But let’s try to write the sort of post the punters want.

Earlier this week Stephen Tall wrote about the need for a distinctive Liberal Democrat narrative for the 2015 general election:

For sure we all know the on-message-in-volume-over-time mantra by now: “A stronger economy, a fairer society, enabling everyone to get on in life.” But that’s not ... a narrative. It’s fine as a slogan and I’m not claiming I could better it. But I strongly suspect that if you blind-tested it with voters they would be unable to distinguish it from the Labour or Tory slogans.

The leadership's answer seems to be more of the same, in the shape of the A Million Jobs campaign.

It is good to see us engaging with such a central economic issue - our concerns can seem a little recherche to those outside the party. Indeed, when given the chance to argue for electoral reform in the AV referendum we seemed mystified as to how to argue for it.

But do we really expect voters to say in 2015: "I'm going to vote Liberal Democrat because, unlike the other parties, they believe in creating jobs"? That seems overoptimistic.

The Guardian quotes on of those unnamed, ubiquitous Liberal Democrat 'sources' as saying:

"The government as a whole has not told the jobs story. We as Liberal Democrats have been central to the growth of jobs through industrial strategy, regional growth policies and green jobs. This is a story that is going to take a year to build up."

That is true, but the Conservatives have an equal claim to this territory and it would be remarkable if they did not try to stake a claim there too. Besides, if you look into the detail of the 'Million Jobs" site you will find a lot that is about house building rather than industrial strategy or growth policies.

Today David Boyle wrote about an issue that is equally central to the economy but where there is a distinctively Liberal position to be expressed.

Writing of George Osborne's plans to return the Royal Bank of Scotland to the private sector, he said:

Britain is crying out for a small banking infrastructure like our competitors. The unbalanced state of the economy demands it. The coalition agreement promises to "foster diversity, promote mutuals and create a more competitive banking industry". How can the coalition justify returning the RBS monolith to the market without making it a useful and effective supporter of business recovery again? ...

The Treasury can go ahead with a sell-off and ignore the Commission if it wants to, but it can't ignore the Lib Dem half of the coalition. It seems to me a clear cut case for the Lib Dems here: vetoing early privatisation until RBS can be returned to the market as a useful and effective lending infrastructure, which it manifestly isn't at the moment. 

That alone would justify the party's involvement in the coalition. The prize could not be more important: providing the UK with an effective lender to expanding business which is so urgently needs.

This campaign would be right, popular and help make us distinct from the Conservatives. By its own it would not be enough, and "we stopped the wicked Conservatives doing X" always invites a question as to why we went into coalition with them in the first place if they are so wicked.

But this just the sort of issue that should form part of that distinctive Liberal Democrat narrative for 2015.

Tory MEP James Elles may not vote Conservative at next Euro elections

James Elles MEP writes on his blog today:

I for one will only be able to vote Conservative at the European elections next May if good sense prevails – as I still hope it may – and we do not go down a route that can only lead to disaster, both for Britain and for the Conservative Party.

Railway Roundabout: Southampton Docks (1958)

Cannabis factory discovered when police open car windows after officer kept breaking wind

Metro wins our Headline of the Day Award - and the story is about Leicester!

Wheel & Compass, Weston by Welland

This is the Wheel & Compass at Weston by Welland, which was one of the pubs taking party in the Welland Valley Beer Festival last week.

If you think the building looks a little top-heavy, there is a reason. As Unmitigated England once explained:

As you can see, it has a slightly odd upper storey that is obviously an addition. Originally this was a two storey ironstone pub with a thatched roof. But the arrival of surveyors in the adjoining fields in the mid-nineteenth century meant that life was to be as upturned as the Welland Valley pastures that surround it. An extra storey was added to the pub as a long dormitory for navvies working on the line.

And you will see from the photograph below, the lower two storeys were built in ironstone and the later one in brick.

Those navvies, incidentally, were building the Great Northern Railway and London & North Western Railway Joint Line for the contractors Logan & Hemingway.

That is Logan as in this blog's hero J.W. "Paddy" Logan, Liberal MP for Harborough. It was building the GNR & LNWR Joint that brought him to this part of the world in the first place.