21 December 2107
Diary of a Corbynista
The PM shows her resilience
by Don Urquhart
14 December
The Department for Education (DfE) has published Primary School League Tables. Schools Minister Nick Gibb is pleased with the results:
“Pupils are now leaving primary school better prepared for the rigours of secondary school and for future success in their education.”
Mind you if you are the parents of one of the 31% of children who failed to achieve the expected standard in reading, writing and maths you might be inclined to disagree.
I am reminded of an investment bank I had dealings with which had IT project standards where the first step was “Define Requirements” and the final one was “Claim Project Success”. After senior management displayed disappointment with the results they decided to reverse the process. So the first thing they did was to claim project success before starting work. This cheered everyone up for the month or so before the IT management was replaced.
15 December
It’s Christmas so the 27 applauded Theresa May’s speech in Brussels, skating over David Davis’ gaucherie in describing the first phase agreement as a statement of intent and not legally binding. The process is fraught with ambiguity. The EU leaders have as top priority the translation of the document into a legally binding agreement. Meanwhile all sides maintain that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.
16 December
Bill Clinton once remarked that politics is show business for ugly people. The sight of cheery Republicans extolling the virtues of the upcoming tax bill tends to confirm this aperçu.
Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty said the tax bill threatened to “blow apart” social welfare provision.
“The US Congress is trying desperately to pass a tax bill that, if adopted, would represent the single most dramatic increase in inequality that could be imagined.”
17 December
My first visit to a girlfriend’s family had some odd moments. I was chatting nicely with her Mum but was a bit put off by a young lady making rather rude faces and gestures from the doorway. It was my girlfriend’s sister. Mum struggled for a bit then reported plaintively:
“She’s very clean”.
Scanning today’s papers, especially the Telegraph and Express where the PM had supplied articles bunging up her achievements, then catching the broadcast media, the phrase that kept cropping up was:
“She’s very resilient.”
And who can gainsay this. History may well bracket her with the other national leaders whose governmental longevity defies logic. Muammar Gaddafi comes to mind as does Saddam Hussein and of course the incomparable Robert Mugabe.
18 December
The Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) reports that 68% of students plan to vote Labour as against 55% just before the General Election. HEPI seems to be linking student voting intentions to their Remain/Leave views. They find that 62% of students would like to see a second referendum and suggest that Labour’s support among students depends on the party being perceived as pro-Remain. I suspect, however, that most students are infinitely more interested in removing the Tories than in Brexit options.
19 December
In September David Lammy produced a report covering racial bias in the Criminal Justice system. The Justice Secretary, David Lidington, has agreed to review all 35 of the Lammy Review recommendations. One of the key proposals is positive discrimination in the selection of judges. Ethnic minorities join women and the disabled in similar quests in several areas. Recently Oxbridge and the Russell Group were lambasted for not taking enough students from underprivileged backgrounds. Surely positive discrimination is just a sticking plaster to cover fundamental problems of poverty and poor education which can only be resolved by significant investment.
20 December
The term “second referendum” is cropping up ever more frequently in the Westminster media bubble. Tom Watson appeared keen on the idea last week forcing Diane Abbott to confirm on the Andrew Marr show that it was not Labour Party policy. Yesterday the Cabinet had its first discussion of life after Brexit. The Telegraph had Hammond and Rudd isolated as soft Brexiters. Hammond went on Twitter to tell us that everything in the garden is lovely. This is not so. Even Capability Brown would throw his hands up and call for the rotavator.
