Good piece by Alice Thomson in The Times yesterday on how those who work in the NHS deserve gratitude as much as English lessons. Continue Reading
Category Archives: Uncategorized
The case for voting Labour……
…not that you’d know it from the slightly odd headline on the piece in the latest issue of Red Pepper, in which I debate the choice facing us in the upcoming election, with Mike Mansfield QC, he of the extraordinary court room confidence and flowing locks. In short, MM thinks the current system and New… Continue Reading
Goldie and Toby’s laugh-in
Read Melissa Benn’s latest comment piece in today’s Independent. and on a similar theme, read her latest blog on the Public Finance website. Continue Reading
Do the maths………..
Excellent article by Will Hutton also in today’s Observer about class and private education, the great taboo – yes, still – in public and political debate. For the moment, I will simply refer to one statistic quoted by Hutton. Ten million people in this country earn £15000 a year or less, and there are a… Continue Reading
Go Ed!
I’m glad to see Ed Miliband, in his Observer article today, nail the lie that there remains a yawning gap between so called aspirational citizens and so called core Labour voters. Miliband talks instead of self interest and shared interest, and the need for Labour to build on common values rather than make a lame… Continue Reading
How forgiveness really works
Read here the extraordinary story of Mary Foley, a forty six year old mother of three whose fifteen year old daughter Charlotte was stabbed at a party in 2005 and who went on to forgive her daughter’s killer. Mary came to speak to a year 11 group at QPCS, our local secondary school yesterday. A… Continue Reading
Is the 11-plus a form of child cruelty?
One Kent head teacher thinks so. Although other heads in selective areas cannot speak so openly about the divisive effects of the grammar/secondary modern divide, many share this view. Continue Reading
A tough conference call
The party conference season is as much a fixture in the national autumn calendar as the new school term and Guy Fawkes night. It briefly takes the spotlight off Parliament and the TV studios and for a few heady days illuminates both top and bottom of the political parties that claim the right to govern… Continue Reading
Answering Conor Ryan on the academies
Read Melissa Benn’s blog post answer, on the Public Finance website, to a piece by Conor Ryan, former adviser to Tony Blair and David Blunkett, concerning the academies: In his last PF blog, Conor Ryan suggests that union opposition to academies is based largely on uncertainty about performance; oh, and just a smidgen of carping… Continue Reading
Fame at last!
Read my blog profile/interview on Normblog posted on Friday July 24th. 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…
