Ouch!

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The spin doctors don’t always know what’s best in a situation and they certainly got it wrong when they persuaded Gordon Brown to return to Gillian Duffy’s house to apologise to her in person following the ‘off-record’ gaffe he made on Wednesday.

I said at the time that this was a very bad idea and that, having telephoned his apology to Mrs Duffy, things should have been left at that. But, no, the spin doctors thought that an apology in person followed by scenes of the pair warmly shaking hands afterwards would put an end to a story that was running out of control.

But now we know for certain that Mrs Duffy refused to come out and be photographed with Brown who was forced to emerge grinning like the Cheshire Cat from the house on his own.

Thus has one Rochdale housewife humbled the Prime Minister of Great Britain. As did, in effect, the spin doctors as well who, in this case, got it terribly wrong. On Sunday, in what is now being callef ‘Duffygate’, we will learn more about what happened when these two people met.

In the meantime, the last of the three leaders’ debates is now mercifully over and, according to reports, ‘Teflon’ Blair is being brought back to bolster Brown’s campaign.

The spin doctors should take care. That could finish Labour off for good!
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We All Make Gaffs!

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I don’t join in the general condemnation of Gordon Brown for making inappropriate remarks in what he thought was private about a woman voter in Rochdale, stupid though it was.

We have all made gaffs in unguarded moments, though I can’t think of any of mine offhand although there are bound to have been quite a few. The only thing to do is to face up to them and apologise for them straight away. And that is what Gordon did in the most humbling and public of ways.

So let that be the end of the matter.
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Few Would Argue

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There is a very thoughtful article in this morning’s Independent about attitudes to crime and prisons. In particular, it highlights the case of one prisoner helped by the St Giles Trust which, like other similar agencies, offers lifelines to released prisoners.

Labour and Tory parties believe that increased crime is inevitable and are committed to building more prisons to deal with it. All parties are committed to rehabilitation schemes. However, the Lib-Dems say they they would not build more prisons but would replace short prison sentences with rigorous community sentences. They would also establish studies to discover what cuts crime and assess the best schemes for the rehabilitation of offenders.

The thrust of the article is that, while the main parties talk about rehabilitation of offenders, insufficient funds are currently given to those involved in this work. It points out that if the Trust and others like it were given more funds it would be possible to offer every offender leaving prison a new lifeline and that the potential savings for the economy are enormous. To support this, the head of the Trust has said that, ‘An independent study has shown that the prisoners we work with have a re-offending rate 40% lower than the national re-offending rate. Investment in this work carries far more value than what people get up to in the city.’

Few, I think, would argue with this.
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Noah’s Ark Found?

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It is reported that a 15-strong team of Chinese and Turkish explorers have found the remains of Noah’s Ark 12,000 feet atop the snow-capped peak of Mount Ararat in Turkey.

References to Noah’s Ark and its landing on Mount Ararat are made in a number of ancient texts in which Noah builds a huge ship and saves mankind and its animals from the Great Deluge that was sent by God to clean the world of its wickedness.

Many people will now be intensely interested in the latest discovery, the site of which is being kept secret until the Turkish government designates it as an archaeological one protected by a UNESCO World Heritage status.

The structure discovered on Mount Ararat has several compartments, possibly made of a cypress wood, and carbon dating has shown the remains to be 4,800 years old. This coincides with the archaeological dating of the Great Flood of around 3,000 BC.

We await the next instalment of this exciting discovery with much interest.
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Fed-Up!

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I’ve probably said it before, but in the 1950s I went to an all-boys secondary school in London where the discipline was red-hot. All of us knew where the invisible but definite lines of conduct were drawn and no-one was surprised with the punishment that followed when any of us crossed them.

The school, ranked in those days as a technical school, was proud of its educational achievements. Many pupils excelling in the trades and arts streams went on to go to various colleges or apprenticeships while some of the more academic ones went on to university if their parents could afford it.

And then the government started tinkering with the educational system, and so-called ‘comprehensive’ schools were brought in to replace the secondary schools.

In my case, our school was closed and we joined a brand-new comprehensive school into which boys and girls from three other schools in the district were merged if not thrust. And then the whole thing went to pot so far as I was concerned. Discipline went out of the window for a start and, in my view at any rate, standards slowly declined. The merging of three schools into one was followed fairly swiftly by a chronic teacher shortage and in my last six months there I was effectively an unpaid teacher, earning a glowing last report from my headmaster but very little else.

Ever since then, the government has continued its tinkering with the educational system and its standards and I just do not believe any of the figures that are produced from time to time that suggest standards are rising. You have only to look at some of the examination questions posed in secondary schools all those years ago to see the gap which has arisen. To take one example, in November 2008 the Royal Society of Chemistry reported there had been a ‘catastrophic slippage’ in standards of science taught in schools, which left children with a superficial understanding of chemistry, biology and physics. You don’t have to look far for similar comments on other subjects.

One indicator in the decline can be seen in the dress of pupils as they leave school. Those emerging from my local comprehensive look a dishevelled or suggestive disgrace. These scruff-bags contrast with the neat and tidy uniforms of the boys and girls attending the local grammar school. Perhaps this indicator is a trivial one but, nonetheless, it points not only to the standards but the discipline in the two different schools.

Where is all this leading to? It is because of two reports that have surfaced.

The first is to do with those busybodies in the EU where the Council of Europe says that smacking violates a child’s human rights. It appears that while smacking is banned in our state and private schools, the law does not cover part-time educational institutions, such as Sunday schools, private tutors or adults in the home. The Council wants Britain to enforce a smacking ban across the board, criticising our traditional parenting practices which it says is based on ‘authority’.

It’s interesting, isn’t it? A parent, private tutor or someone in a Sunday school can administer a short-sharp shock, but not school teachers. Of course, many will argue that there are many other ways to discipline a disobedient or non-compliant child and this is undoubtedly true. On the other hand, there are some children that may need a sharp reminder now and again as to who is in charge. Anyhoo, my point is that the EU want us to remove yet another aspect of a parent’s authority.

Turn then to a report from the Sutton Trust whose research has found that children’s exam results in England were more strongly linked to their parents’ education than in many other countries. Now isn’t that a surprise? In other words, the parents may have been better educated than their children!

The Trust warns about what they call the ‘social segregation’ in England’s secondary schools and recommends that the government creates ‘more balanced intakes in secondary schools and pilot innovative approaches to improve attainment for the poorest children’. I seem to have heard something along those lines once or twice before.

I am not an educationalist. I’m just a grumpy old fellah fed up with experts constantly tinkering with all aspects of our lives. I’m fed-up with constantly seeing loutish behaviour and a lack of respect, not only from children but from adults as well. I’m fed-up with graffiti, litter and indiscipline. I’m fed-up with constantly hearing about a person’s ‘human rights’, most often applied to criminals, illegal immigrants and those who don’t want to do an honest day’s work. I‘m fed-up with hearing that the police are frustrated in their efforts by a timorous Crown Prosecution Service. Most especially, I’m fed-up with the van driver who damaged my car last evening while I was in the supermarket and who quickly drove away though, fortunately, not before his number plate was taken by someone.

I really am sounding like a grumpy old man and, indeed, I expect I am. On the other hand, we surely cannot go on the way we have done for the last few years.
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Sobering Thought

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Some of the morning newspapers report Stephen Hawking’s warning that extraterrestrials are almost certain to exist but that we should avoid encouraging any contact with them.

‘To my mathematical brain,’ he says, ‘the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational. The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like’. He adds that trying to make contact with alien races is ‘a little too risky’ and that ‘If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.’

That’s a very sobering thought for a Monday morning!
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Woof, Woof!

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The government is trialling a new scheme, The Pets As Therapy programme, designed to calm and relax young offenders, including those with mental issues, in HMP Hindley near Wigan.

It involves introducing a dog into the prison which will roam the jail under the supervision of an officer. Prisoners will be able to pet it and play with it and help in its care. A spokesman said, ‘The idea is that the animal is therapeutic and improves the inmates’ behaviour, making them feel better, less angry and less prone to smashing up their cells.’

Though the local Tory candidate has described the scheme as ‘utterly ridiculous’, I think it’s a wonderful idea.

You might say that this is because I’m a dog-lover and this is partly true. However, for many years now some US prisons have been taking in waifs and strays and allowing certain prisoners to rehabilitate them so that they can be found new homes. The dogs live in the prisoners’ cells and are regularly taken out for exercise, groomed and generally cared for. Prisoners are also taught how to train the animals. These schemes work miracles in US prisons - both for unwanted dogs and the prisoners themselves - and there is, apparently, long waiting lists from long-term inmates to participate in them.

Perhaps, something along the lines of the American scheme could work in British jails and bring down the incidence of violence in some of them.

In any event, anything which will show young offenders that there is a gentler and calming side to life can only be applauded. Good luck to them and Barney the dog!
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