Politics

I was at a lunch this week to talk about the state of further education, in view of the Government’s plans to extend the school leaving age. It was generally agreed that further education and training are in a bit of a mess. “Does Gordon Brown actually know what vocational skills are?” someone asked. Who knows? But his Government could start showing that they understand the problem they need to tackle in non-academic terms by using the right language.  “Vocational” is the extraordinary term that has slipped into the vocabulary of politicians and educationalists to mean what we used to call practical, manual, technical skills. (That was before the expectation

Is there anything more depressing in an age of prosperity, choice and freedom than the spectacle of an old fashioned public sector rationing system doing its bleak work? The criticisms levelled by Jim Knight, the schools minister, at the best schools over the implementation of the statutory admissions code are a horrible revival of the language of a bygone era when public goods were controlled by rigorously enforced queuing. And, in keeping with Fraser’s warnings, this is another example of the Brown government undoing the public service reforms of the Blair years (such as they were). The decision to make the admissions code statutory rather than advisory was a sop

The London mayoral race is entering a bitter period, with most of the invective being directed at Ken Livingstone.  Of course, we shouldn’t be too surprised when the Evening Standard, which has had its run-ins with Livingstone, produces headlines such as “Mayor ‘misled public over cash'”.  But – surprising or not – these headlines will still spoil Livingstone’s reputation with the voting public, and have already lead to condemnation from MPs of all three parties. More telling, though, is the fact that outlets such as the Guardian and New Statesman are adding their weight to the assault.  The Guardian’s criticism may be heavily mitigated but it exists nonetheless, with Dave

PMQs opened with perhaps the most worst planted question I have ever heard in the Commons and it’s worth a blog on its own. Robert Flello claimed his constituents “concerned about how economic…” (stumbles, looks at sheet) “em, how global economic issues… affect them. How does my Rt Hon Friend feel these events compare with those of the early 1990s when Britain was plunged into recession after recession?” This Brownite jargon sticks in the jaw so much that not even Labour backbenchers can read it without a script. And spot the key Brownite narrative: that there is “global economic turbulence” which is to be blamed if any bad things happen.

Mulling over the organ donations row, and the fascinating posts by Coffee Housers, I went back to the last time the Commons debated the issue properly – which was on an amendment to the Human Tissue Bill in June 2004 calling for “presumed consent”. I recommend the debate to anyone interested in the forthcoming controversy over Gordon Brown’s proposals. The amendment four years ago was put forward by Dr Evan Harris, the Lib Dem MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, although Tam Dalyell recalled that he had championed similar measures decades before. This was Harris’s summary of the case for change: First, it creates a default position that life should

For once, PMQs is not the main attraction on a Wednesday. The hot ticket today is Welsh Questions where Peter Hain faces the House for the first time since his latest funding troubles hit the headlines. Westminster watchers are intrigued to see how, Hain who is not beloved by his fellow MPs, is treated by his colleagues on the Labour side. Things have not got any easier for Hain with the Prime Minister’s intervention to describe Hain’s funding errors as “an incompetence.” Even if Hain survive, his reputation is shot. His poor performance in the deputy leadership contest had already damaged his standing and the news about both how much