Selling us out

Is this a record? Margaret Hodge, Minister of State at the Department of Culture has done it again. Whereas last September she praised the Albert Hall Proms as "a fantastic institution" and commented that it was "broadening access"...

...just six months later, she claims the event "attracts too narrow a section of society" and says it is "one of several major cultural events many people did not feel comfortable attending".

I find it incredible that on 6th June 2007, the same Margaret Hodge said that "British residents should get priority in council house allocation" - see the story yourself at http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/content/articles/2007/06/06/barking_dagenham_kenhodge_video_feature.shtml

A year before this in April 2006 she stated that white voters, angry at an influx of black communities, were turning to the British National Party because of Labour's lack of leadership: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/hodge-white-voters-flock-to-bnp-because-of-neglect-by-labour-474397.html

Despite a clear "about face" Ms Hodge says that culture could "enhance a sense of shared identity". But clearly only the right kind of culture - something more British than the Proms season, something greater than Jerusalem or Land of Hope and Glory.

Ms Hodge has the answer - it's Coronation Street...

Isn't it time the Government of Britain started standing up for Britain, not selling us out?

What would we do without them?

It's official. We now know precisely why so many illegal immigrants are managing to gain access to this country.

A crack team of peers have worked long and hard to examine the reasons why so many people are managing to cross the UK's borders and slip quietly into the Black Economy.

Lord Joplin and his EU Committee on Home Affairs have burned the midnight oil and put their considerable collective intelligence to work. Was it the carbon dioxide sensors which sense exhaled breath? Was it the 'magic eye' millimetre wave scanners which can effectively 'see through' lorries? Was it perhaps the heartbeat sensor technology? How about the new biometric IDs for Non-European Economic Area foreign nationals proposed from later this year?

No. It's the fences. If we repaired the fences at Calais, we could prevent at least fifteen hundred additional immigrants gaining access to the UK.

That's it then - despatch a white Transit immediately with nail gun and roll of weld mesh. One wonders what great mysteries of the world they might turn their attentions to next?

What would we do without them?

You couldn't write this stuff...

Some of us thought it bad enough that convicted illegal immigrants were given tax payers' money to go back to their country of origin, let alone giving them fifteen hundred pounds.

But a report out today tells us our Government have now doubled this to three thousand pounds. Many will think this is money well spent, as it is intended to help those law breakers with rent, moving expenses and so on, as they resettle in their country of origin.

Wouldn't you have thought it better to spend that cash tightening up our border controls so that we accepted those who wanted to make a positive contribution to this country?

And just so we don't think the magical fifteen hundred pound figure is gone - papers today annouce that this is exactly the amount by which Scottish tax payers are subsidised by English tax payers.

You couldn't write this stuff...

Secondary school admission - a right, not a priviledge

For over sixteen thousand anxious mums and dads waiting on tenterhooks to find out whether their child has been offered a place at the school of their choice, the wait is nearly over.

Kent County Council sent out almost 16,400 First Class letters yesterday, offering places in a hundred and one secondary schools across the county, and over 3,500 parents chose to receive their offers online as well. Under the admissions scheme, which was imposed in 2004 by the then Secretary of State for Education, KCC must offer every child a place by "National Offer Day" - 1st March or the nearest working day.

And whilst ninety five percent of children will be offered one of the three choices of school they put on their form, for a mercifully small five percent of families, the suspense continues through the Appeal Panel process.

My eldest daughter - who passed her eleven plus with a good mark - was offered a Grammar school, but apalling public transport from our village outside Tunbridge Wells would have meant, in the worst case, getting the first of four buses fifteen minutes before lessons ended the previous day! After a series of nerve-wracking appeals, she was fortunately offered a place at a more local Grammar. But why can't we just build in more capacity where it's needed?

One of the few things which made our experience last year a little less daunting was the assistance we got from the KCC Choice Advisers - expert education staff acting as advocates for parents, guiding them through the maze of admissions. If you're in the same boat as we were, call them on 01622 694073 or 01622 694065.

The irony is that in so many other areas, such as health, social care and so on, our Government seem fixated on personal choice. So why can't local councils be allowed to expand their selective school capacity to meet demand, at the same time as celebrating and building on the many achievements of their non-selective schools?

I well remember a previous Labour Education Minister - the product of a Grammar school education - pointlessly attempting to explain on the BBC's "Question Time" why the educational choice which has clearly been of such benefit to him, should now be denied to so many.

In Kent at least, our local politicians are clear - an appropriate, stimulating and challenging education is a right, not a priviledge.

Just leave it there

One of the items on this evening's news was about Luciano Pavarotti, who sadly died on 6th September last year.

So what was the story? Was it about record sales of Nessun Dorma? Was it about the fame he brought to his home village of Modena?

No. It was that he died with twelve pence in his bank account, and was apparently twelve million pounds in debt.

Is this the best that our media can do? Why can't we just remember one of the greatest opera tenors who ever lived, who brought operatic music to a wider audience of millions, and just leave it there?

Take a deep breath and start over again

I was showing my eldest daughter some photos of a trip I made to Paris when I was her age, and got to a set of the Arc de Troimphe at the top of the Champs Elysees.

"What's that gravestone with the flame Dad?" she asked. "That's the tomb of the unknown soldier. The flame can never go out." I replied.

"But what's the unknown soldier's name?" she asked.

Sometimes you just have to take a deep breath and start over again...

The 6.15 to Brighton

The Government last year published its much-trumpeted White Paper "Our Health, Our Care, Our Say" which said that Health and Social Care providers should be giving much more freedom, independence and choice to its users. That five percent of funding for acute health care should be redirected to 'community settings' to create more local, and preventative delivery. This White Paper followed hot on the heels of the public consultation creatively entitled "Your Health, Your Care, Your Say".

This paper also invented LINKs - Local Involvement Networks where patients and social care service users could dictate how and what they wanted from their services. The Government have no more idea than anyone else what this will look like - indeed, they appointed half a dozen "early adopter" authorities, most of whom spent the last eighteen months in complete confusion and inactivity.

The previous NHS mechanism - the Public and Patient Involvement Forums, or PPIFs, worked well, although they will be disbanded from 31st March, and there is more than a sense that this whole thing is just a "new idea for a new headline" much like Mr Blair's 'Big Conversation' with the nation a few years ago.

So it came as no surprise when I heard how this LINKs legislation had come into being.

Apparently, the civil servant who was proof reading the White Paper on the train home from London, felt the paper was missing something. Ah yes, some element of "public engagement" - Labour's latest wheeze.

And so it was that PPIFs were killed off, and incomprehensible LINKs were born. On the 6.15 to Brighton...