The Politicisation of Parenting, and Rescuing Education
Frank Furedi on the ‘politicisation of parenting’ and the undermining of authority, and his five-point programme for rescuing education.
In comparison with parental determinism, the economic determinism of Stalinism or the racial determinism of the old eugenics lobby seem positively subtle. The idea of parental determinism allows policymakers to promote the most absurd prejudices.
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It is in the sphere of education that we can most clearly see the destructive impact of parental determinism. As I argued in my recent book, Wasted: Why Education Isn’t Educating, one of the most significant causes of the problems facing our schools is the erosion of adult responsibility and authority.
Cleaning up the Euromess
Paul Krugman on Europe’s financial crisis
…the real story behind the euromess lies not in the profligacy of politicians but in the arrogance of elites – specifically, the policy elites who pushed Europe into adopting a single currency well before the continent was ready for such an experiment.
A point of view with which we can sympathise, He then goes on to draw the sadly obvious conclusion:
Now what? A breakup of the euro is very nearly unthinkable, as a sheer matter of practicality. As Berkeley’s Barry Eichengreen puts it, an attempt to reintroduce a national currency would trigger “the mother of all financial crises.” So the only way out is forward: to make the euro work, Europe needs to move much further toward political union, so that European nations start to function more like American states.
And that, we are afraid, is a point of view with which the ‘policy elites’ who created the conditions for the crisis in the first place will all too readily agree.
Krugman add the rider that further political union is ‘not going to happen anytime soon’. We are not as sanguine. If history is any guide, the European ‘policy elites’ will definitely give it a try.
Shock! Horror! Liberals Undecided!
As always, resolute in their irresolution:
The Lib Dems insist they have not made up their mind about what they would do if the general election fails to give one party a majority in Parliament.
A Potential Tory A-Lister?
Quick, Dave, get her on the A list!
Australian former anti-immigration politician Pauline Hanson is selling up and heading to Britain, according to an interview with an Australian magazine.
One worries for Ms Hanson, as she gave her reasons for leaving Australia:
“Sadly, the land of opportunity is no more applicable," she said, blaming high taxes, over-regulation and a "lack of true representation".
This sounds like a case of out of the frying pan, into the fire.
Does David Cameron Believe in Decentralisation?
In his speech yesterday to the Scottish Conservative Party Conference in Perth, David Cameron declared:
Today we are the party that passionately believes that local is best, the party that knows that the more power people have, the more responsible they become, the more fulfilled they are, we are the party of decentralisation.
As things stand we can only take Mr Cameron at his word, and hope that this aspiration towards decentralization becomes a guiding principle of his government when (if) he wins the General Election. The omens, however, do not look good.
As leader of the Opposition, the only area in which Mr Cameron is able to exercise real power is in the running of the Conservative Party. And in this, he has demonstrated a tendency towards preferring centralisation over the devolution of power. Nowhere is this more evident than in the selection of parliamentary candidates.
In his desire to ‘modernise’ the Conservative Party he has, since the beginning of the year, taken the power to impose shortlists of approved candidates on constituencies that have yet to select their champion for the General Election. In doing so, he has opted for candidates that fit a politically correct template. If one were parodying the modern Tory Party, one could do no better than to come up with the shortlist of candidates that has actually been imposed on Surrey East: three women, a black businessman, a Muslim businessman, and a gay man.
Such a cavalier attitude towards the activists who actually run Conservative Associations, for whom Mr Cameron appears to lack any instinctive sympathy, could pose problems for him in the long run, as Andrew Pierce warns:
With the polls pointing to a hung Parliament, David Cameron needs to realise that there is a real anger simmering among the party faithful. If he continues to treat these stalwarts with such disdain, his army of Tory heartland volunteers could rebel — making his life very difficult indeed.
So come on Mr Cameron. You can talk the talk on decentralisation – it’s time to walk the walk: give local constituencies the power to select who they want to represent them. Show us you mean business when you say that ‘Today we are the party that passionately believes that local is best.’
European Commission Refuses to Correct Error in Fishing Quotas
From a report issued today by the European Ombudsman, who is responsible for investigating ‘complaints about maladministration in the institutions and bodies of the European Union’:
The European Ombudsman, P Nikiforos Diamandouros, has criticised the Commission for an administrative error concerning fishing quotas in the West of Scotland. This followed a complaint from a Scottish fishermen’s association.
After his investigation, the Ombudsman concluded that the Commission had erroneously interchanged the data in two columns of a table contained in a document which served as a basis for the EU Regulation on fishing quotas for the year 2007. This mistake led to a 10 % reduction of fishing days allocated for a specific group of vessels in the West of Scotland. The Ombudsman called on the Commission to correct its error in order not to risk any knock-on effects for subsequent years. The Commission, however, refused to accept the Ombudsman’s recommendation.
So, the European Commission has been found guilty of an administrative error, impacting on the livelihoods of fishermen, but has refused to change anything. This really tells you all you need to know about the nature of the Eurostate.
Howard Flight Defends the City
…on Conservative Home Platform, and warns of the consequences of damaging one of the most vibrant sectors of our economy:
If the UK ends up with a tax and regulatory regime which drives international financial services to other countries, it will be UK citizens who suffer from the loss of the international earnings, the loss of the tax revenues generated and the loss of well paid employees’ spending power.
Andrew Lansley and the Search for ‘Consensus’
Andrew Lansley has apparently been in secret talks with his opposite numbers in the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties to try and forge a ‘consensus’ over the future of social care:
Lansley confirmed he had entered secret talks with his Labour and Liberal Democrat opposite numbers without telling Cameron.
Firstly, it seems remarkably stupid to have done this without telling David Cameron – if that is the case. The more important point is did Lansley realise what the consequences would be if he had been successful? At a stroke, he would have effectively removed an area of controversy from political debate, and deprived the voters of this country of any say in the direction of social care policy.
Jeff Randall Assesses Gordon Brown’s ‘Achievement’
A devastating assessment of the legacy of Gordon Brown by Jeff Randall:
…sterling is in the toilet, our pensions have been slaughtered, cash savings yield almost nothing, the country is up to its neck in unprecedented debt, the banking system is awash with funny money, our gold reserves were sold off at rock-bottom prices, and Britain’s dole queue is considerably longer than before Crash Gordon began cooking the books.
Lord Judge see Justice is Done
Sometimes the judges get it right:
A ‘mild-natured’ middle-aged man who stabbed a teenager in the throat after being attacked by the axe-wielding youth in his own home has been spared jail by the nation’s most senior judge.
Kenneth Blight, 51, who left 19-year-old Andrew Nelson with life-threatening injuries after the drink and drug-fuelled teenager attacked him with the axe, was described today by Lord Judge, the Lord Chief Justice, as ‘a decent middle-aged man in his own home, goaded beyond endurance’.
Blight was handed a two-year suspended sentence by a judge at Teesside Crown Court on October 19 last year… Attorney General, Baroness Scotland QC, asked London’s Appeal Court to put him behind bars, because she felt the sentence was ‘unduly lenient’. But her application has now been refused by Lord Judge who called the decision to let Blight walk free ‘humane and justifiably merciful’…
Lord Judge then went further and allowed an appeal against the length of Blight’s suspended term, cutting it from two years to one, after ruling that it had been ‘unlawful’ to impose such a long suspended term for this offence.
