Gavin's Journal

Do Not Burn Starkey On The Stake

2011-08-15T14:57:00.001Z

It was glaringly obvious to anyone watching Newsnight last Friday that David Starkey's comments would outrage the intelligentsia. To be politically incorrect with a license takes bravery, to be without one (like Starkey) is like charging into enemy front lines. What commentators are debating is not whether his comments were semantically racist/racialist but whether he had committed heresy and thus should be ostracised from public life. People have been there before and only after mass grovelling and defense from multiple people are they finally exonerated.

Quoting Enoch Powell on his racial politics is dynamite even if you may try afterwards to distance yourself from much of it; the rivers of blood speech being the most controversial of all speeches by a modern British politician. Starkey may have mitigated his agreement with Powell's predictions by refuting the identity of the would-be perpetrators, but this was not enough. A Conservative candidate in 2007 was forced to resign for praising Powell and a couple of years later Daniel Hannan faced criticism for his praise of him.

Throughout the discussion was the surprising omission of that commonplace word: 'wigger'. I appreciate that Starkey is from a different generation but I find it hard to believe that he is not aware of this word; rather, he choose to explain by stating, in probably his career's most provocative statement: that the 'the whites have become black'. Obviously, he was not talking about entire racial groups but only meant that certain white people have been replicating the demeanour and attire of black rappers.

Rap music is almost certainly the most racially conscious form of popular music. Lyrics ranging from Tupac's 'Changes' to Bashy's 'Black Boys' have addressed the concerns and experiences of what they perceive as the black community. This is why there are those who describe rap music as 'black culture'. Of course it is only one facet of black culture but it is undeniably high-profile with its commercial success and vast cultural influence that I have witnessed throughout my life amongst people of my age group. In the past, black academics like Tony Sewell had argued that rap music had a detrimental affect on the education of young people. Unsurprisingly, these comments sparked fury several years ago from our PC classes.

The former Conservative MP, Jeremy Hayes, made the excellent point that the success of Ali G was because it was a satire on young whites trying to act emulate the lives of rappers that they idolised. That Ali G was allegedly based on Tim Westwood, a middle-aged white DJ who is ironically ridiculed by the same intelligentsia for mimicry of the rap culture that they sought to defend on Newsnight, says it all. Starkey describes their language as a kind of Jamaican patois but it is, now more than ever, far more amalgamated in nature. Some of the slang found in The Wire would not be out of place among them such as the word 'holla'. And that was a series that had a scene in Season 2 where one white characters ridicules another for being a 'wigger'. Cultural commentators have also pointed out that it is not only whites that are copying rappers. In the novel White Teeth, Zadie Smith described it as 'raggastani' where one Pakistani character in it, Millatt, tries to speak in Jamaican patois.

Sadly, Starkey's opponents seek to condemn him rather than engage in civilised debate. Dreda Say Mitchell focuses her sarcastic fire in The Guardian on him but it descends into a self-opinionated, defensive piffle rife with silly analogies. Her alleged '99%' of people in agreement with her over Starkey being 'ludicrous or comical' must be a lousy sample unless you think the Guardian is an indication of public opinion. Just comparing some of the comments on that article (there were actually Starkey supporters on the Guardian!) to those by defender of Starkey such as in The Daily Mail and The Telegraph just shows how varied public opinion is. The media often portrays the general public as being politically centrist but this has always striked me as an illusion.

I'd recommend taking a look at Toby Young's response and especially James Delingpole's., both in The Telegraph. I had my doubts about Delingpole previously, especially when seeing him at a talk, but this article has redeemed him. Both make valid points on the opprobrium that Starkey was met with when he described David Lammy as sounding white. Many I know would have expressed it in those terms but the BBC has far stricter guideliness on discussing race. I would even go as far as saying that a number of people I know would have not bated an eyelid about describing Lammy as a 'coconut', and I know people from a multitude of backgrounds. Clearly what Starkey was saying was not exceptional bigotry, as his opponents would want you to think, but the conveying of a substantial part of public opinion.

I do not know whether this will have long-term repercussions for Starkey. PC Piers Morgan of the Thought Police wants him decommissioned but Morgan's someone many of us love to hate as symbolised by Clarkson's punch to his face. Time will tell but that remarks like this can be seen as so inflammatory signifies the extent to which the irrational racialism of the past has been extinguished in Britain. In my experience, this shift has rarely been out of high-mindedness but social coercion. Perhaps today's passionate anti-racism is a subconscious atonement for the past.

Hiatus

2011-07-28T17:58:00.001Z

I'm taking a break off blogging for a couple of weeks. However, after the break, I intend to post far more consistently and on a permanent basis.

Update: I have decided to delay my return and will be back in October. I would just like to concentrate on my other writing till then.

The Murdoch Drama Unfolds

2011-07-20T14:29:00.002Z

I was originally planning to watch the whole committee hearing for Murdoch The Greater and Murdoch The Lesser but a few hours of viewing needs to be enthralling and, for the most, part it could not do that for me. I long for a time when committee hearings resemble courtroom cross-examinations. In this line of questioning you need something more on the lines of HardTalk and not Parkinson.

It was disconcerting to hear from Louise Mensch in a CNN interview that she found it 'absolutely terrifying' to question Rupert Murdoch. Candour is often welcome but the general public wants their parliamentarians to be indomitable. She was lucky she had time to gather her courage when that comedian attempted to' foam-plate' Murdoch only to have the joke on him after failing and getting a chi-induced strike by Murdoch's last wife. It'll be interesting to see what his sentence will be. I suspect a fine or, at best, a suspended sentence. After all, can a custard pie wound anyone? Judging from the highlights, the committee hearing seemed standard fare: routine denying of knowledge of these transgressions, dispassionate condemnations of this criminality and curiously Rupert Murdoch's admission that this was the most humble day of his life. For an octogenarian to say this points to a life that has tasted little humility.

I think we can all agree this is just the beginning to the unravelling of this sinister scandal. Sean Hoare's death may have been judged as suicide by a post-mortem but it just seems like too much of a freak coincidence for comfort. His paranoia, reclusive behaviour and past drugs problem could have only worked against him in his legitimate fears that those he exposed would want revenge. After all, he had not only implicated News Of The World but sections of the Police that had been bribed into collaborating over the phone hacking. When you have crossed the police, who is there to protect you?

The beauty of conspiracy theories is that even if they are factually true, reason would make us incredulous or berserk by them. There are those who believe that David Kelly was assassinated over helping to expose the WMD hoax and let's say, for argument's sake, that he was. The government would be permanently discredited by it and successive governments would probably never recover from it. George H.W. Bush once admitted that the American people would have him strung up by a lamp post if they knew what he got up to over the Iran-Contra affair. Alas, many of us will never strive to uncover the truth for ourselves because we fear the price to pay for absolute truth.

Boris's Choice

It certainly was curious to see Boris Johnson avoid a question on whether Cameron should resign over this hacking scandal. If Boris is a Cameroon then I would have thought of this as an ideal opportunity to support his old friend. In all fairness, he did intimate that Cameron could not resign for the reasons that Paul Stephenson did but 10 Downing Street would certainly not be the right place to get an answer to any questions over Cameron's resignation. If Cameron goes then his staff will have to follow. News sources have stated that this answer infuriated No.10 but can it be seen as evidence of Boris's alleged wish to succeed Cameron one day? Although there are number of people in the party that would like to see him as leader, there are many feel who feel that BoJo simply does not have the gravitas nor public image to be Prime Minister. Cameron's successor will come sooner or later but who that will be is one of the most fascinating questions in politics.

Gilmour And The People's Appellate Court

There are those who think that Charlie Gilmour's 16 month sentence was too harsh. If you want to be honest then always make clear that real number is at most half that for anything less than murder. And even that 8 month sentence will probably not be entirely served in jail. Not with his excellent lawyers and background.

Trivialising the Cenotaph by hanging on its Union Flag rightly causes anger in many of us for affronting what it signifies. He claims that he did not know that he was hanging from the Cenotaph but many are unconvinced that an undergraduate from arguably the world's finest history faculty would not know this. True he have been too high and drunk to know but even if he wasn't this does not strike me as being implausible. Too many of us have this odd a priori reasoning that by merely being an undergraduate at Oxbridge you must be a breed apart in both knowledge and intellect. This of course does not follow in practice and we much appreciate that his curriculum could easily have avoided mention of it. But surely school should have taught him this? Well the educational system in schools is so obsessed with passing exams that it spends little time on augmenting to the general knowledge of its pupils. And even if they tried, they would soon forget it because it would not help them to pass the exams.

But back to the point on whether his sentence was just. The courts had to take into account that not only did he affront the sacrifice of our war dead he also vandalised a car belonging to the Royal Family. There is also the argument as to whether his background compounded his sentence. I am of two minds about this: he is of a privileged background but he did not choose it but has exploited it to his own ends. You have to decide which is more important in assessing the length of a sentence.

A Rag Gone But What Next?

2011-07-14T12:48:00.002Z

At last this five year period of phone hacking by News of The Worlds is about to reach its crescendo. Before this current scandal, News of The World was involved in a plethora of legal battles over phone hacking of prominent people from the Royal Family to Chris Tarrant and Steve Coogan. Let us not forget that Coulson resigned in 2007 over allegations by the British Monarchy of hacking by his employees, and the man who recruited him straight after this scandal was none other than David Cameron.

It took six years before the public woke up to what they had voted for in Blair but his heir has already gotten himself into what will probably be the defining blight on his career. You will hear people say how could an eminently intelligent man make such poor choices in his friends. But when did intelligence preclude folly?

The Chipping Norton set (Cameron's powerful media comrades) help explain the torrential media support that Cameron received during his career. Rebekah Brookes is part of clique, as is Matthew Freud: Rupert Murdoch's son-in-law. The Murdoch Empire gave its full backing to Cameron during the election and helps us understand how Cameron, a man of an eight figure wealth, got away with making taxpayers pay for his country house in Oxfordshire. It also explains why Cameron appointed a Murdoch loyalist to decide the BSkyB takeover after Vince Cable's embarrassing blunder. It would probably have happened had this sordid chapter of the scandal not occurred around now.

Journalists like to think of the Murdoch Empire as the natural advocates of the Tories, while others argue that Rupert Murdoch is a non-political media mogul who switches allegiance based on the whims of his readership. The New Labour period, the only time the Tories have not been in power in the last thirty years, was socially left-wing but under Blair led a foreign policy that was congenial to the hyper-neoconservative Fox News. All too often people confuse a non-political stance with a non-partisan stance. Just because one is not a party stalwart does not mean that their political agenda is any less determined nor biased.

All this has certainly done Ed Milliband a big favour. Labourites and the media alike rightly had their misgivings of his leadership capabilities but all that is on hold now that fate has made him the premier rebel against Cameron and the Murdoch Empire. Now Murdoch has backed down on the takeover and a full judge-led enquiry will be launched and who knows what will be the conclusions of this inquiry. Ed Milliband had said in his acceptance speech that the age of New Labour was over but it was unclear what was meant by that. If it meant no more sucking up to the Press Barons then that is only a good sign.

I said who knows the results of the proposed inquiry but past outcomes of scandal can give us a decent guide. As some have already said, the mighty culprits will get away and use their lieutenants as the sacrificial lambs. Many of the employees of the News of The World were innocent of this scandal but Murdoch had to find a way to abate the public outrage as him and his organisation.

The most curious question is whether the outcome of this hacking will in any way lead to new restrictions on press freedoms. I would like to support complete freedom of the press but, in practice, I am unsure. In the great Sci-Fi series Battlestar Galactica (the reimagining of course) the Commander remarks to a press conference that the freedom of press is not a license to slander. Too often a desire for license masquerades itself as a want for freedom. If one's freedom is at the expense of another is it not then license? However such calls for restrictions on the unaccountable media are muted when we realise that it is a fine check on the avarice of our masters If it was not for the media, we would never know about the corruption in parliament that was patently exhibited by the expenses scandal.

Norman Tebbit posed a thought-provoking question in his blog over the phone-hacking scandal. Would we condemn such illegal techniques if they were used for 'moral' purposes such as exposing the corrupt practices of a politician. Indeed, this is has been a prolific question in Jurisprudence on whether the law should be moral. I have virtually no education in legal philosophy but here my brief response. Only in exceptional circumstances should illegal methods be taken on the behalf of public decency. A politician's corruption, thought reprehensible, is not a life-threatening crime. The media would almost never have extenuating circumstances for phone hacking because their purpose is first and foremost profit from circulation of their stories. This is why the instruments of the state like the police and intelligence services are permitted by law to hack phones because their work is for the higher purpose of security. But like all areas of human affairs this too is open to an abuse that we must do all in our power to mitigate.

A Hari Slip

2011-06-30T22:40:00.002Z

Hari's unorthodox interview techniques sure are becoming the talk of Wall Street. Why he has only now been grilled for it is a curious question. Private Eye accused Hari of submitting a number of half-truths (to put it politely) in his articles as far back as 2003 - but nothing came of it.

I think many were not entirely satisfied with his defence on his website. It is certainly true that most are clearer in writing than orally but isn't the appeal of an interview is its ideally ad-lib nature? Sadly, in professional life interviews are often scripted. Of course, it goes without saying, onomatopoeic words are not required in the print nor are spelling mistakes but interviewees will often prepare their answers and what you read is, at best, an approximation of the encounter. Even television interviews suffer from a similar kind of trickery.

I do acknowledge that some of his interviewees do not speak English as their mother tongue but some of us would prefer this authenticity even if some clarity is lost in translation. If I have a conversation with someone whose English is not fluent then I may make assumptions but would ensure that this does not contradict what they have said. Using quotations from what they have written would probably not serve as a clue to their mindset. Regardless, even if I regarded this interview technique as sound practice, there is no reason why he could have not added a footnote to explain that he had copied and pasted this from the written work of the interviewee. After all, how many of us would be aware of this unless informed? Only thanks to the scrutiny of some journalists do we now know.

Hari has not helped himself by claiming: 'none of my interviewees have, to my knowledge (my emphasis), ever said they were misquoted, even when they feel I’ve been very critical of them in other ways ' when Toby Young has proven that Noam Chomsky complained of being misquoted. 2003 is a long time and memory is a sine qua non for knowledge so perhaps we should give Hari the benefit of a doubt. However, Hari also refuted the charge of plagiarism. Although this brand of interpolation cannot be regarded as genuine plagiarism, Guy Walters has pointed out to cases of Hari plagiarising extracts from other interviewers of Hugo Chavez. It is imperative that Hari explains himself over these accusations.

Hari himself has, in the past, admitted that his life has been a freakishly lucky one. After all, how many stories do you hear of someone who drops out after school, for a year, after GCSEs but ends up getting a First at Cambridge? Or a wannabe journalist being granted a living wage out of principle when the many have to do it unpaid indefinitely? And how many win the Orwell Prize in their twenties? Perhaps his luck is now facing its great trial now that the Orwell Prize Council is investigating these accusations. Personally, I think that provided the addresses all the charges satisfactorily and promises this will not happen again then we can should not hold this against him.

In no way do I dislike Johann Hari as a journalist. If anything, he's probably me favourite left-wing journalist for a versatility that eclipses the majority of his trade. I would advise everyone to check his fine piece on the management consultancy scam or his recent article on the purpose of books in the wake of kindle. Nevertheless, I can appreciate why he is such a polarising columnist. Some of my left-wing friends regard him as their political guru: a rebel with the cause of social justice on his side. Conversely, conservatives are often peeved by his shrill idealism. Toby Young's energetic criticisms of Hari are clearly guide by a sense of giving a 'holier-than-thou, butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth, supercilious Lefty' his comeuppance.

What are we willing to die for?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywqDSM1nFTo&feature=related

I stumbled on this on YouTube and must say it's a good comeback. Yet it triggers quite a complex argument on intervention: is one's intellectual support for a war compromised by a lack of willingness to fight for it? I could just about accept that a conscientious objector can intellectually support a war but then again many of them were willing to die for their country, only on the condition that they would not have to kill another human being. They volunteered for bomb disposal and drove ambulances onto the battlefields in World War 2. Martin Luther King opined that a man who wasn't willing to die for something isn't fit to live. A controversial quote for sure but there is much truth to it. How can you honour your own life if you are not willing to sacrifice it for any purpose?

P.S. Although I posted the headline on 30^th June, I have written the bulk of the article on 3^rd July. I just thought after writing this article it is only right that I point this out.

You've Never Had It So Bad

2011-06-22T20:58:00.000Z

It's strange how man's experience of fortune abides to a kind of equilibrium. There are so many instances where a period of misfortune is followed by an unexpected turn of good luck and vice-versa. It occurs in both the stories and our lives that inspire them. But, of course, I'm thinking of what Harold Macmillan said in the sixties, about us never having it so good.

According to ONS/Daily Mail Research (now don't be prejudiced!) we have not seen this kind of regression in living standards since 1870; or take Mervyn King's more credible view that this is the biggest squeeze since 1920. Regardless, a 5% increase in inflation is predicted according to Economics Guru, Roger Bootle, while growth in incomes will be a mere 2.8%. All in all, we're facing a £900 increase in living costs.

This decline of living standards has spanned a few decades now. I remember the late old couple opposite me bought their house in the fifties when he was a mere clerk and she was a housewife – unthinkable these days. Most of my generation have accepted that they will be renting for years to come; and that's only if they can afford the rates in the first place!

I do not agree with Nick Clegg on most things but his recommendation that the tax threshold be raised to £10,000 should be enacted immediately. I will always maintain that those hard-working people who earn salaries in the low five figures should have their financial burdens assisted by the state in any way possible. Surely this is more noble than sustaining a system of welfare that makes benefits pay better than work. Our welfare state certainly isn't 'well fare' to quote Ali G/ Sacha Baron Cohen.

This Man's For Turning

Although I think most conservatives are pleased with Cameron's discarding of the 50% of discount in prison sentences, many of us are baffled that such an unpopular policy was advocated in the first place. I personally think that the current 33% discount for most crimes is too lenient and it should be no more than 20%. Of course I understand that the nation needs to get its finances in order but there are some things that we should not put a price on such as justice and liberty. Many unreliable commentators tell us that the British people are centrist but on crime they lean towards the right, and that is why they were angered by Ken Clarke.

Ken Clarke was always out of place as Justice Secretary. On social issues, he has always had liberal-left leanings even during the Thatcher period. It was this and his support for the European Union that always precluded him from the leadership. If the Conservatives had won that attainable majority, he would have made a respectable Business Secretary.

Was this U-turn honourable however? Bagehot of the Economist seems to think it was overlooked by the politicos but warned that this acceptance can wear thin with age. The problem with the U-Turn is that is can be seen as a lack of self-confidence and that is a quality we all want in our leaders. I just regard it as another means of Cameroonism being seared into the Conservative Party.

Gove's Candour

At least we now have an Education Secretary with a modicum of honesty. We hear it all the time of how students are ill-equipped for the demands of university; shocks that the intellectual skills that gave them AAA at school only grants them a 2:2 in their first pieces of work. It is not only the softness of our exam system that ill-prepares them but the obesity of the university sector and moreover the change of learning environment from school to university. At school, it was as much down to teacher as it was to you. Conversely, at university, I would say it's about 90% the student and 10% the teacher. Its this very transition that first year undergraduates struggle with. Many even admitted that they felt they had academically regressed since sixth form.

What intrigued me most in his proposals were his expectations for a school-level education in Science. In hindsight, I do think educationalist have been hopelessly idealistic in teaching Science to youngsters. You simply cannot engage with the Sciences in the way that you can with the Humanities: when did you last talk about History and when did you last talk about Chemistry? I did Maths and Physics up to A-Level and remember little from them, and have no drive to as it cannot be learned from mere reading nor discussion but only with diligent practice. Worse still, much Science that you learn at school is simplified to a degree that it is considered a lie by some Scientist. Physics and Chemistry, for instance, require far more sophisticated mathematical techniques than they do at A-Level.

Game of Thrones

I must say that the finale was not what I expected. Nevertheless, it made me realise the purpose of Game of Thrones vis-a-vis the Song of Ice and Fire saga: to be the opening part and not the first volume. Putting it another way, I suspect that together the seasons will feel more like a 70-80 hour film than a series of 10 hour shows when it's completed in the second half of this decade. I am very much looking forward to A Clash of King (or Game of Thrones: Season 2) next year. Hopefully, they now have the budget to film an impressive battle scene. Finally, I think many will agree the that the last scene of the finale is an iconic one in television history.

The British Illiterate

2011-06-05T19:10:00.000Z

Our most popular free paper has really had a stab on what we all well aware of but resigned ourselves to. However, even I was alarmed at the parlous figures. Not only alarm but sympathy to those who are deprived of one of the greatest pleasures in life. No-one expects most students to keenly read complex works of literature like Leviathan or Paradise Lost but at least to be able to read a web page or instructions.

According to the Standard: one in three children do not even have a book at home BUT 85 per cent own a video games console. Many in the intelligentsia have picked on video games as a leading factor in the educational decline of our country. Although it would be dishonest for me to state they are entirely wrong, I do think that this singling out of video games is because it is not politically incorrect to do so. Somehow I doubt that they would have dared to attack rap music with the same fire. I was a schoolboy only some years ago and I can assure everyone that music influenced the adolescent mainstream far more than video games. Even by thirteen, there was a stigma attached to video games because they were and still are associated with nerdiness. Whereas, music was the height of coolness in those years of our lives. Solidarity was shown by the chanting of lyrics from a stereo. Conversely, often intelligent students were avid video gamers.

This anti-reading culture is not exclusive to our weaker schools, Even at my old school, a respectable independent school, many did not read for its own sake and only read their set books after much nagging from their teachers. It didn't help that you could still got an A in A-Level by only skim-reading your set books. I only started becoming enthusiastic about reading after my abrupt departure from school. Often the school environment stunts learning because students are forced to learn subjects that they will never have an interest in. It is no good arguing that one should have a grounding in all the subjects when the majority of students will forget everything but an iota of most of them. Yet this forced learning as a child does strike me as necessary to establish discipline in students. I've heard a fair share of people remark how grateful they are that their teachers disciplined them and pushed them as they could never had the self-discipline to do so. Then again self-discipline is just about the hardest virtue to achieve in life.

Having been educated in the private sector for secondary level, I had little first-hand appreciation of how poorly educated some were until I went to some job training course in Fulham. One had no idea what defeatist or pessimistic meant; another could not spell washing. I was asked on more than one occasion to moderate my vocabulary to end the bafflement of my fellow 'class mates'. The most tragic thing of all is that the teachers did not have the guts to tell the students that their level of education was unacceptable and instead fed them with sweet lies of great careers looming. I'll never forget a mordantly funny moment there where a student had to have his graduation early because he had been electronically tagged.

This returns us to another intriguing statistic from the Prison Reform Trust that 48 per cent of inmates have the reading age of a seven-year-old or younger. At Wandsworth Prison I was told by a volunteer that most had a reading age of eleven there. Even though the correlation between illiteracy and crime is self-evident, it is an argument in itself for ring-fencing the education budget especially when Foreign Aid is viewed by Cameron as sacrosanct.

New College London

I was taken by complete surprise by this announcement. It only seemed natural that London would one day have a specialist institution for the humanities. After all, Imperial College is there for the Natural Sciences and LSE is there for the Social Sciences: the halfway hour between the arts and the sciences.

Perhaps the most important question is whether students would be willing to pay public school-level fees for a university education. There is an argument that you are paying to be taught by the best academics in the world but there's another argument that fees should correlate with contact hours. Will people pay £18,000 for the proposed '12 to 13' contact hours irrespective of the quality of the teaching? The Left have, in my view, been unfair in viewing this institution as step in regressing social mobility. The assisted places scheme could potentially be a blessing and something that public universities will struggle to emulate despite increases in tuition fees.

Its mission statement to “inspire the next generation of lawyers, journalists, financiers, politicians, civil servants, writers and teachers” is undeniably admirable but can it really rival the ancient dominance of Oxford and Cambridge as educators of our elite? Mary Beard wrote some perceptive comments in The Times about the difficulty of a Liberal Arts College becoming pre-eminent if it seeks only to train undergraduates. I will certainly be writing about this novel institution again.

Leave the Lords alone

2011-05-28T21:31:00.002Z

By a merciful quirk of fate, House of Lords reform has been delayed generation after generation. Even after the Parliament Act of 1911, there was talk of an elected House of Lords. This obsession with democratising the Lords is a symptom of pure democratic theory; an a priori take on democracy that is devoid of the good sense of a political empiricist. It does not often follow that elections will make a chamber more accountable. If anything, the Lords is of greater propriety than the Commons.

Democracy, as the dominant buzzword of the west, is rarely used nobly. Referendums, intended to bring democracy to the people, are used sparingly and, when repeatedly, only to coerce the voters as we saw with the EU constitution. You may vote for your candidate but how much say did you have in selecting him? I still think that the jury is out on talks of having open primaries. Our political culture is becoming increasingly Americanised. Just look at the recent phenomenon of directly-elected mayors or wishes to re-brand the House of Lords as a British Senate. In my lifetime, I wouldn't be surprised if we had a directly elected Prime Minister and a cabinet that did not sit in Parliament.

I remember on my first visit of the Lords how struck I was with by its splendour. Our guiding MP, a very senior Labourite at that, bemoaned of the supposed injustice of unelected politicians having a far better-looking chamber to the plain Commons. If anything, I think this lack of a democratic mandate compels the Lords to make decisions that our often closer to the wishes of the people than their elected counterparts. Legislation in the Commons is often impetuous and needs a revising chamber of experts who are often not election-friendly. If I were to make any change to the Lords, it would be to make them all cross-benchers. Although, the independent-mindedness of the partisan Lords would probably make this superfluous.

From special to essential

I would say a more appropriate term would be the 'necessary' relationship. America likes Britain as an ally, when its convenient, because its knows other European powers will not wag their tail to the master's whistle. Call the French chauvinists, particularly under De Gaulle, but respect them for showing far more single-mindedness to their own interests than we Britons do. It is undeniable that the United States of American owes its origins to Britain but it has ripened differently to us. Our common language encourages a bond that flinches upon trial. You only have to look back as close as the Iraq War for that. I often do not agree with Michael Heseltine but he is absolutely right over out relationship with America. To describe it as 'special' is nothing more than a pathetic delusion. Do we honestly believe that we lie on a higher pedestal that nations like Canada, Japan or Israel? That we have the kind of clout in the 'essential/special' (take your pick) relationship with American that the Lib-Dems do in this partially Conservative government? Nevertheless, I am all for good relations with American, just none of this glorification of it. I will always believe, like many others, that those who sneer at the American hyper-power of today will mourn it when it is supplanted by China this century.

The sleeper saw the naked emperor

Obama's speech in Westminster Hall seemed to have arrested all of the audience bar Ken Clarke. I cannot be too hard on the man for his recent days have been trying on a man of his age. It's just a pity that he isn't in the Treasury as opposed to the Justice Department. Although Obama is a talented orator, he is no Lincoln. I often find that his long pauses are not points of gravitas but intervals to gather his thoughts. His slow, dispassionate, preaching style loses its power after a few hearings and would wane even more were it not for his undeniable charisma. Despite this and his difficulty in turning America's fortunes, I still reckon he will win the election next year by default. None of the republican candidates are strong enough to rival him.

Tree of Life

I had a feeling that this film would earn its acclaim. True, it has polarised some viewers but many of the critics that I rate highly such as Peter Bradshaw and Roger Ebert have sung its praises. I am not at all surprised by the polarisation. Malick is an artisan amongst film-makers; he requires us to see a film with our head before our heart. Sadly, it was meant to be first screened in British cinemas but legal disputes have delayed it indefinitely. It would have been nice to see it in the cinema but there's always blu-ray.

What do we do with A-Levels?

2011-05-20T23:13:00.000Z

Like every year in recent memory, we are told again and again that public examinations continue to be watered down. Often I read that today's A grade would be a C grade nowadays. No wonder the exam boards created the A* grade to lessen the amount of achievers of the top grade. Even though inventing an A* is almost always an admission of failing standards. The much longer use of the A* in GCSEs was implemented for exactly the same reasons.

The Labour government continued to insist that the press was knocking off the advances in teaching and student intellect. The truth was that the it could not concede that its educational policies were a failure. From the abolition of the assisted places scheme to the introduction of the AS Levels. The assisted places scheme did much to elevate the socially disadvantage in our society and enhanced the private schools that took part in it. Decades ago, my old school, Dulwich College, conducted the 'Dulwich Experiment' that allowed a substantial number of applications to quality solely on academic ability. If their parents' income could not meet the fees then the state would pay. This experiment made Dulwich break into the highest echelon of independent schools and caused a surge in Oxbridge successes. When compared to that golden age, the Dulwich of today is of a lower tier.

I never saw the point in introducing the AS Levels. Having a meagre demi-qualification for the sake of breadth seems frivolous. True there is some weight to the argument that studying three subjects from 16 to 18 was too narrow for that age especially when our European cousins were studying several. But why not harden exams and made everyone do four or even five A-Levels then? Some have argued that speciality over breadth is part of the English educational character. This seems somewhat contradicted by the popularity of Joint Honours degrees and Britain's most famous degree: PPE.

The worst legacy of the AS Levels however is the re-sit culture it unintentionally caused. Once you realise that this isn't your only chance you can't help but take your foot off the peddle a bit. The modular nature of it only exacerbated this. It certainly encouraged me to be an inveterate re-sitter for the Scientific subjects in the hope of getting that lucky top grade after so many attempts. This deluded me about my abilities in the subject and unfair on those who obtained the top grade on their first try. But perhaps the greatest travesty of it is that it is inimical to preparing A-Level students for undergraduate level. At university, you can only resit to pass the year – not to improve your grade. Irrespective of your performance in the re-sit papers, they are capped at 40%: the minimum score to pass the year. This is one of the many reasons why elite universities stress that exams should be obtained in one sitting.

Not only are A-Levels structurally flawed but also in the criteria they use to award grades. In my experience, universities complain that A-Levels are an exercise in regurgitation. This is even more valid for GCSEs but we're more sympathetic towards them because everyone has to do them. Although the GCSE was, by and large, a memory test, the A-Level did require a modicum of thought. However, many rightly complain that adherence to assessment criteria invariably took priority over incisiveness of argument. For instance, a good friend once told me about his A-Level Philosophy class, where many able students scored appalling marks not because their written argument was flawed in exam conditions but because it wasn't argued in the way that the exam board desired. Such a system has encouraged schools to devise methods in which an A-Level student can score the top grade by pleasing the checklist of A-Level markers. Another problem is that these markers far too often make mistakes. An examinations officer at a sixth form college once candidly remarked to me that one would be surprised about how often appeals for a remark are successful.

So what needs to be done? As has been suggested, universities need to co-ordinate more with the exam boards given that, in a sense, the A-Levels are the entrance exam for universities. I personally feel that the exam boards should be centralised because they are seen to offer differing syllabuses and moreover demands. There should be a university entrance exam that is (relatively) coach-proof. The results of the Law National Admissions Test showed that there was little difference in results between state and private schools simply because it relied on analysis and not knowledge. Universities could then decide, on a case-by-case basis, whether to place more weight on the A-Levels or the university entrance exam when making an offer. Many wish for A-Levels to get the best out of its candidate but let's never forget that A-Levels are only intended to be a foundation in their respective subject. It is the purpose of university to mature the intellect in a way that is impossible at school.

What is that man doing?

It's good to see that there's someone from the cabinet with some sense. True, Fox is not fundamentally opposed to the increase in foreign aid, merely its enshrinement in law, but cabinet responsibility may be holding him back. Cameron's plan to increase the foreign aid budget while cutting everything else seems nothing short of lunacy. Foreign aid is not a vote-winner in this age of austerity.

The Next Chapter In The Coalition Saga

2011-05-11T20:39:00.000Z

Days before the referendum, I doubted anyone, at heart, thought the 'YES' vote was going to win. The big surprise was the (relatively) excellent turnout. After all, electoral reform is a subject that bores most to tears and I can recall many accounts from politicos about the members of the general public not having the foggiest idea about AV. Perhaps they unluckily sampled the abstaining majority. My take is that the voters wanted First Past The Post for its simplicity. Nevertheless I do think there is an element of truth to the view that this referendum was a plebiscite on the coalition government: 'YES' if you're happy with the Liberal ying; 'NO' if you're content with the Conservative yang. Looking back it's comical to recall that two journalists chatting on Sky News predicted a turnout of 3% some days before the referendum.

I was always in favour of retaining First Past The Post. I admit that it is hardly perfect for being blind to votes casted nationwide. But all the alternatives use party lists which weakens the electorate's check on parliamentary candidates. Furthermore, I think that even intelligent people would find it difficult to rank their five choices in a thoughtful manner. The Supplementary Vote system for mayoral elections gets it right with offering two choices. I can easily think about my second choice but my third, fourth and five choices would be arbitrary.

In Britain, few would argue that a coalition is the ideal kind of government. And this is almost guaranteed in the alternatives. Many, particularly on the left, regard FPTP (or to use its more blunt name: 'Winners Takes All') as antiquated for all the wasted votes given to losing candidates. But an electoral system can never be described as the best but the least worst. It is interesting to observe that countries that lean more towards social democracy like the Scottish Parliament and The European Union use versions of PR. Whereas more conservative nations like America and Britain use FPTP.

In light of all this, some are calling for Cameron to call a snap election but this is unlikely. All the parties realise it is too soon after a major election to devote the finances and manpower to it. I am not sure if any party would win outright. No party won a majority last year because they lacked a clear blueprint for their time in government.

Whatever Cameron does in the aftermath, he must not give Clegg an elected Lords as a sop to his failure. The Lords would lose its independence from the Commons if it was subject to the ballot box. Moreover, it would simply lack the pool of talent that it currently has. Regardless, I hope that Clegg does not resign as I cannot see any potential successor being as loyal to Cameron as him. Who else could be Diet Dave in Clegg's place?

The Ending of Bin Laden

It almost seemed surreal when I heard the news that Bin Laden had been found and killed. There were times in the last decade that many resigned themselves to him never being found. Then suddenly, some months before the 10^th anniversary of 9/11, he's assassinated/executed/killed in raid (take your pick but from now on I'll use assassination).

Of course, the most debated point is about the ethics of shooting an unarmed man in his bedroom, irrespective of the heinousness of his crimes. Rowan Williams and commentators like Peter Oborne were disconcerted by the branding of this assassination as justice It is human nature to have difficulty with killing. Self-defence makes it easier to handle but only with experience. There is also the question of whether one can support assassination but not execution. Proponents of the latter would argue that unlike the former there is the openness of a trial and the chance of reprieve. However, perhaps we are more comfortable with assassination than execution because it is reserved for the bad of the bad like Bin Laden. I reckon that even opponents of capital punishment would make an exception for Bin Laden because of the magnitude of his crimes. Some may say that we stooped to his level by showing no mercy in assassinating him but to equate his crimes to our actions seems preposterous. Others talk of a trial but that never really was on the cards.

There is a more credible argument against the gloating of his death. The necessity of taking life in certain circumstances is an accepted fact of life but to rejoice at killing someone, even if that is their deserved fate (and many, including myself, believed Bin Laden deserved death), seems needless and potentially corrosive.

University Patronage

I don't think that offering university places to students because of their parents income is ever a good idea. Achievement should be on individual merit and nothing else. That was why the Grammar Schools, and the Assisted Places Scheme, did so much for social mobility. I remember a Conservative MP once saying to us in a meeting that, for him and his friends, Grammar School really was a passport to a better life.

My other fear is that such a scheme of allowing rich families to buy places could tempt cash-stripped universities. It is easy to forget that tuition fees barely cover a fraction of the expenditure for teaching an undergraduate. Some have said than an Ivy League-esque system is inevitable but I sincerely hope not. Working graduates already receive a triple-whammy to their salaries in income tax, national insurance and student loan and often all three for many years. It will be interesting to see how people will take to paying back a medium-to-high five-figure student debt once they start working in 2015.