Great piece in today’s Guardian about exactly what’s wrong with the government’s education agenda. It is in fact part of a speech by Huntingdon headmaster Peter Downes, in favour of his anti free school motion that was carried overwhelmingly at yesterday’s Lib Dem conference. The argument is put with utter lucidity; hence its inclusion in… Continue Reading
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Thought for the day
On a recent discussion on pensions and retirement, Newsnight chose, rather ingeniously, to flag up the age of every speaker in brackets after their name. A joke? A way of putting content in context? Both, perhaps. It certainly made me think, if I am ever involved in an education discussion on that same programme, I… Continue Reading
Selling off the schools system
Michael Gove says his education policies will help Britain’s poorest pupils, but will they just compound the social divide? Read Melissa Benn’s latest feature in this week’s New Statesman. Continue Reading
Spoil sport
I suspect Queen Polly is right on this one. History may well judge David Miliband to have lost the leadership election at exactly this point, with Mandelson foolishly attacking Ed Miliband and Blair almost certain to come out in support of David, although I suspect Blair will be rather more subtle in his approach in… Continue Reading
Building Schools for the Favoured
Tomorrow, July 19th, at noon, I will be part of a contingent of Queens Park Community School (QPCS) parents and students joining a lobby organised by teachers’ unions against the government’s cuts to the Building Schools for the Future budget, QPCS itself has lost 17 million pounds but a lot of Brent schools are far… Continue Reading
Labour contenders give it a twirl…..
Read Melissa Benn’s latest piece on the Labour leadership contest, here, in this week’s Public Finance. Continue Reading
Strange days indeed
In this strange post election time everyone is trying to make sense of what has happened and what should happen next. (This blog for instance got a lot of hits yesterday which I can only presume was people keen to find others with whom to share the surreal political moment; sorry but I was glued… Continue Reading
Recommended
Very good piece by Seumas Milne in The Guardian today on what Tory plans, particularly on education, might really mean. Continue Reading
The single mother’s manifesto by JK Rowling
‘David Cameron says the ‘nasty party’ that castigated people like me has changed. I’m not buying it’ says JK Rowling in The Times this week. Continue Reading
Regressive, Stagnant and Contradictory: Fawcett’s damning verdict on parties’ Manifesto
For the duration of the election campaign I am posting items in the news I find of interest/relevance to our understanding of what this election really means. Below, a press release from the Fawcett Society on what the main party manifestos promise – or fail to promise – in relation to women. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:… Continue Reading
Latest writing
THE CRISIS OF THE MERITOCRACY
The crisis of the meritocracy: Britain’s transition to mass education since the Second World War PETER MANDLER, 2020 Oxford: Oxford University Press 361pp, hardback, £25, ISBN 9780198840145 Cambridge historian Peter Mandler has a fundamentally optimistic story to tell about the growth of universal education in Britain over the last seventy years and one can sense… Continue reading…
Latest news & events
A Cold War Tragedy
Melissa will be in conversation with Anne Sebba about her new book, ‘Ethel Rosenberg – A Cold War Tragedy.’ Weds 15th September 2021, 5-6pm, in the Robert Graves Tent at the Wimbledon Book Festival. More information here. Continue reading…
