As the leader of a group of parents trying to set up Britain’s first free school, I’ve been spending the past week or so frantically mugging up on the Liberal Democrats’ education policy. In the event of a hung parliament, would the Lib Dems support the Conservatives’ educational reforms? On the face of it, the
It is now generally accepted that David Cameron made a colossal blunder in agreeing to the televised debates. Had last Thursday’s debate not taken place, the Conservatives would still have a comfortable lead over the other two main parties, on track for a small overall majority. Yet among the commentariat — even those in the
Just how much appetite is there for David Cameron’s Big Society? Not much, according to the chattering classes. One of the more bizarre sights on the day the Conservatives’ launched their manifesto was watching the liberal left poo-poo the notion that ordinary people could be ‘prised away from the telly’. Jackie Ashley in the Guardian,
Biblical scholars say that five is the number of grace, three the number of perfection. ‘Fifteen, therefore, relates to acts wrought by divine grace.’ I don’t know if Tony McCoy was saying his prayers as his mount Don’t Push It cleared the last and headed round The Elbow for the Grand National finishing line but,
Espying Katie Walsh at Newbury with a ride for Nicky Henderson, I couldn’t help recalling one bookie’s reaction to the finish of the gruelling four-mile National Hunt Chase for amateurs at this year’s Cheltenham when she and Nina Carberry finished first and second, both earning bans for overuse of the ‘persuader’. ‘Birds first and second,’
When you’ve got as many young children as I have, the prospect of going on holiday anywhere isn’t very appealing. It’s not being somewhere else that’s the problem, though there’s a risk that their sleep patterns will be disrupted. Rather, it’s getting to wherever it is you’re going. How do you keep four children under
Just as a stopped clock is right twice a day, Gordon Brown’s government has finally done something worth celebrating. Britain is launching an executive space agency that will take control of the money spent on space by the different government departments and science funding bodies. It is a belated response to the surprising success of
I was slightly sceptical of Team Cameron’s decision to unveil their ‘secret weapon’ last Sunday — namely, Dave’s wife Samantha. Not that she isn’t luminously beautiful. And her ability to juggle motherhood with a high-flying career will undoubtedly appeal to many professional women. Rather, it’s her social provenance that concerned me. Wouldn’t her transparently upper-class
My son Ludo will be celebrating his fifth birthday this weekend with a party at the Build-a-Bear workshop in Westfield. Those of you who don’t have a small child will be blissfully ignorant of this new fad. Build-a-Bear Workshop is a toyshop-cum-factory in which children can construct their very own teddy bears from scratch. The
It’s become an annual tradition, like the first cuckoo of spring. At the beginning of March, when state secondary schools send out acceptance or rejection letters to anxious parents, a New Labour stooge pops up to point out that the majority of parents managed to get their child into their first choice of school. This
Earlier this week I was seriously tempted to call the National Bullying Helpline. Ever since I wrote a blog for the Daily Telegraph questioning whether Alexander McQueen really was a ‘genius’, I’ve become a whipping boy on Twitter, the social networking site. The strange thing is, my chief tormentors are fellow journalists. ‘Alexander McQueen: a
Like many authors, I include an email address at the end of my books so readers can get in touch to say how much they enjoyed them. That’s the idea, anyway. In fact, the vast majority of reader emails I get are requests for career advice. Take the following, which I received a couple of
As someone trying to set up a school, I’ve been doing a bit of research into different pedagogic philosophies. What’s the most effective way to teach child-ren, particularly if they’re not that interested to begin with? Should we embrace an old-fashioned approach, with masters standing in front of blackboards reciting Latin verbs? Or a ‘personalised
It is not just the superstars who make a sport. In cricket the Vaughans and Pietersens win the headlines but it is the gritty Paul Collingwoods, making runs when others are losing their heads, who give the England side character. So who expresses jumping’s ethos? Try Warren Marston. A crowd-pulling name? Maybe not. But Warren
A few weeks ago my friend James and his wife got a cat. They live in a leafy street in Holland Park, yet they’re so overprotective they refuse to allow Louis out of the house. His wife won’t even leave him alone, insisting they get a ‘babysitter’ if they go out. As the owner of
‘The basic principle of English social life is that everyone thinks he is a gentleman,’ wrote Evelyn Waugh. ‘There is a second principle of almost equal importance: everyone draws the line of demarcation immediately below his own heels.’ That was written 55 years ago and today almost exactly the opposite is true. According to a
It is minus two and the paddock behind Epsom’s famous South Hatch stables, still dusted with snow, is bone-hard as the horses circle for inspection by trainer Jim Boyle. Come off on this ground and you could easily snap a collarbone. But there is not a whisper of apprehension. When Wunder Strike, who scored his
Why are local authorities so bad at PR? Don’t they realise they are engaged in a political fight for their lives? The nub of the Tories’ education policy — though they don’t express it like this — is to wrest control of state education away from local authorities. Given that educational provision is the chief responsibility of
As a columnist, I’m often asked whether I deliberately place myself in embarrassing situations for the purpose of furnishing myself with comic material. The answer, regrettably, is no. My life is humiliating enough without me having to court embarrassment. However, when I read that a dating site called beautifulpeople.com had expelled over 5,000 members for
If, like me, you’re convinced you’ll never be truly happy until you’ve shinned up the greasy pole it is easy to forget that not every high-status indicator is desirable. For instance, if I had £100 million my wife’s constant threats to divorce me might actually carry some weight. Then there’s the fate that befell David