elitism
When I was a nipper I left school to stack crates at Portsmouth and Brighton United Breweries, in King’s Street. That raised the hackles of my headmaster, Mr Mills, who called me a ‘froth blower’. If he’d had his way, I’d have brought glory to Portsmouth Southern Grammar School for Boys by going to Oxford or Cambridge. The school had no honours board for crate stackers or Dockyard mateys, just for Oxbridge entrants.
Old Mills need not have worried. Two years later, as an RAF erk, I was rubbing shoulders with men who’d been to university. What it gave them was the much-admired ability to talk the hind leg off a donkey. Mind you, the real chatterers were the ones with a mouthful of marbles among the officer class. And they got their pips for the old school tie, not brains.
To my shame, I must confess that I then applied to a Cambridge college myself. I filled in an application form, giving my step-father’s job as ‘foundryman’ in Portsmouth Dockyard; I left his religion blank, and I paid the requisite five guineas. A one-line refusal came by return of post. No refund. Not even an invitation to sit the entrance exam (in addition to my five ‘A’ levels). They clearly didn’t want ‘my sort’.
Half a century on I read that Oxford and Cambridge enrol just one in ten students from lower socio-economic groups. While universities like Portsmouth and Surrey take some 90% of their students from state schools, Oxbridge is stuck on just over 50% -- even though private schools account for only 7-8% of all schoolkids.
This isn’t only an elitist issue. Hooray Henries and Harriots opting for Oxbridge often reinforce the skills and knowledge imbalance that bedevils Britain. Courses at our local universities are often more relevant and beneficial to the country than those offered at Oxbridge. What we need are more people with high levels of scientific and mathematical knowledge, and foreign languages. Punting and talking loudly may help recruitment for politics, but it does nothing for the real economic challenges facing us.
Leigh Park and Chichester Festival Theatre. Chalk and cheese? Not a bit of it. Like the golden crocuses and daffodils springing up around us, culture is blossoming in Leigh Park. On 15 February, the young people of Park Community School and six junior schools staged their own musical, ‘Bombed Out’, at Chichester Festival Theatre, and packed the place out – which is more than can be said for many drama, ballet and opera productions.
What wonderful talent was displayed by the 150 young people. How lucky Park Community is to have such an inspiring genius of a music teacher as John Gleadall. Already the composer of half a dozen full-length musicals, he based ‘Bombed Out’ on the experiences of Portsmuthians who were evacuated in the war.
Not only does such work show young people what they can do. It forms a close bond in the community between the generations. Oi, YOU, put that light OUT!
Published Date:
21/02/2008
Modified Date:
28/02/2008
the law and religion
Poor old Rowan Williams (not to be confused with Atkinson). He must be regretting ever having opened his mouth about ‘sharia law’…only to put his foot in it. As with the gay issue, he tends to talk through his woolly beard so that no one can understand where exactly he stands. Not that wooliness prevented a tabloid feeding frenzy, like sharks sensing blood. Much of the assault was led by the bash-a-bishop and bash-a-Muslim brigade. Sadly, while we really do need a rational debate on Islam, we evidently lack the ability to conduct it in a civilised manner. The haste with which prejudiced opponents of the Archbishop used crude stereotypes of Islam is depressing.
Where the Archbishop went wrong was to describe sharia codes as ‘laws’. It may come as a surprise to the head of the Church of England, but laws are made and enforced by states, not by God or a particular religious creed. Those states may be influenced by established religions in various countries, to the extent that religious observances are conflated with civil laws. As with Iran and Israel, a confusion can arise as to who is enforcing what upon whom. Saudi Arabia is another example where civil law has been so influenced by religious custom that half its population, its women, are savagely oppressed. Sharia, however, is not monolithic; it does not exist as a unified set text. Like all religious texts it has to be interpreted by scholars according to the society in which they live.
In the democracy that we have in Britain, laws are made by Parliament and interpreted by the courts. Therein lies the distinction between law and religious code. Britain has a multiplicity of religious communities which all attempt to live by their own codes, more or less. But all these codes exist within and under the constraints of British civil and criminal law. So there is little open conflict between religious code and national law. Anyone who has any doubt about whom to obey, a religious or a civil judge, must choose the latter every time. That’s what Rule of Law means and demands.
Portsmouth children are reading good books. As reported in The News, this year’s literary quiz involved all but one of our secondary schools, and 112 schoolchildren. Portsmouth Schools Librarian chief, Peter Bone, and his librarians prepared and put the questions, and four local authors pitted their wits (miserably) against the 11-12 year olds.
By contrast with the old literary quiz, this year’s event eschewed the commercial razzmatazz and monetary prizes, opting instead for a silver cup for the winning school (St Edmund’s) and book tokens for each round winner.
At a time when a leading examination body is ‘dumbing’ down the ‘A’ level curriculum by recommending texts from Richard and Judy’s book-club – including autobiographies of Billie Piper, Sharon Osbourne and Gordon Ramsay – it is refreshing to see English teachers, librarians and young people opting for a wide range of books with considerably more literary merit.
Published Date:
14/02/2008
Modified Date:
21/02/2008
what the adverts don't tell you
Ads for armed forces recruitment don’t mention death and amputation, or mounting military suicides. Nor squalid housing, abject compensation, neglect of veterans and life-threatening shortages of kit. They don’t even say why exactly our chaps are fighting in barren mountains or how they are to make allies of people they’ve just been blowing to the dark ages they never left.
But, then, signing up for wheelchairs and unwinnable wars is not an incentive to join the army at an age when young people wouldn’t be allowed into a pub in civvy street. The army’s chief of general staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt, has complained of ‘the growing gulf between the army and the nation’. Homecoming parades, he says, should take place for civilians to pledge support for our soldiers.
At a time when even the Duke of York is voicing misgivings about the Americans leading us blindly into war, it hardly fosters a celebratory mood of thanksgiving for a just war, gloriously fought. Perhaps we should have politicians’ parades to show who are these brave men and women of the Westminster Palace that send our soldiers to their death.
No wonder allies like Germany, Italy and Spain refuse to allow their troops into the south of Afghanistan where the fighting is fiercest, and Canada is threatening to withdraw its forces. British politicians, however, ever obedient to US command, are to increase their present contingent of 7 700, even though the puppet Afghan government has snubbed Britain by rejecting Paddy Ashdown as the UN special envoy. As the killing goes on, so the glamorous ads for recruits and the generals’ calls for more cheer-leaders increase.
The one-time Pompey lad, Rudyard Kipling, who lost his only son in World War I, had a word for it. ‘You talk o’ better food for us, an’ schools, an’ fires, an’ all: we’ll want for extra rations if you treat us rational… But it’s Saviour of ‘is country when the guns begin to shoot; An’ it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ anything you please; An’ Tommy ain’t a bloomin’ fool – you bet that Tommy sees.’
A government target you may have missed is fourth for Britain in the medal table at the London Olympics. So desperate are the political and Olympic bigwigs to do well that they plan to import world-class athletes from poor countries to win us medals – after smoothing the way for GB passports. The scheme already exists elsewhere: oil-rich Arab states and some Scandinavian countries offer top African athletes cash plus instant citizenship to wear their vest.
What a fab idea. Imagine the money we could save on swimming pools, school playing fields, gyms and athletic tracks. No need to waste good money on city kids, black or white, Asian or Polish. No reason to open up our tennis, cricket and athletic clubs to the hoi-polloi. No point in funding professional coaches and organisers. Let’s have ready-made winners and ditch home-grown talent.
Personally, I’d rather we lost than won by cheating.
Published Date:
07/02/2008
Modified Date:
14/02/2008
muggings
I had an email the other day (does anyone write letters any more?) from a literary editor in London. I quote it in part: ‘I was robbed in the street 2 weeks ago – had my bag cut off me almost two years to the day and within 30 yards of where I was robbed of my bag before. First time: 2 East European teenage boys. Second time: black-African man in mid-30s… Do I look a victim? As I have now told 3 MPs, umpteen plain-clothes men and endless blokes from North London councils, I do not wish to be a Supported Victim; I wish to be a Safe Citizen. My parents, grandparents and great-grandparents were able to walk the streets safely. Why then can’t I?’
At about the same time, Garry Newlove was being kicked to death in Warrington outside his home. He’d gone to remonstrate with a gang of white youths, aged 15 to 19, who were vandalising his wife’s car. The boys had spent the day boozing and smoking dope. Garry died in hospital two days later.
These two incidents did not happen once in a blue moon. The pages of this newspaper provide weekly evidence of fatal stabbings, drunken brawls and teenage violence in and around Portsmouth. So common is robbery that my editor’s experience would hardly get a press mention. What really concerns me is that this is probably an augury of much worse to come. The no-go areas and regular murders and muggings on the streets of London and Liverpool, Manchester and Nottingham will surely spread to our city unless the authorities act fast and decisively. It is not impossible to turn the clock back: after all, crowd violence at football matches has been virtually eliminated.
What is lacking in our society is an awareness that the freedom to do as you like has no meaning without its twin, responsibility. That is, respect for certain standards that our society subscribes to. Unless something is done to make that happen – and soon – the question ‘Why can’t I walk the streets safely?’ will remain unanswered.
A News editorial recently, referring to post office closures, made the point that ‘sham consultations like this make people very cynical.’ 61 branches were put up for discussion; 61 were closed! Cynicism must greet other mealy-mouthed promises. Take NHS dentists. For many years patients and dentists have complained of the mounting difficulty in finding an NHS dentist.
A new survey has now provided alarming statistics. More than a third – 34 percent – of people in England and Wales haven’t visited a dentist in nearly two years. Why? Simply because they cannot find an NHS dentist that will accept them, and they cannot afford private treatment. Finding an NHS dentist has become as rare as hen’s teeth.
The glib government response is that it is throwing money at the problem. The trouble is that the cash rolls straight down the drain known as primary health trusts. Is it any wonder people are cynical?
Published Date:
15/01/2008
Modified Date:
07/02/2008
rebelliousness
Our Prime Minster says that 2008 will be the decisive year of this decade. It may well be for him. But he is small beer compared to the American President. Between now and 4 November Americans will make a decision that will affect the entire world. Like it or not, when Uncle/Auntie Sam sneezes, Britain catches a cold. Our politicians, who prattle on about our ‘shared values’, have made us clients of Big Sam in terms of foreign policy and much besides. It is a little known fact that the US has been bankrolling large sectors of our defences and still has over 10,000 of its troops stationed here.
It is odd how large chunks of the media and both major parties are so enamoured of America, yet so antagonistic to Europe. Hence their eagerness to cling to President Bush’s apron strings over Iraq and Afghanistan, even Iran. Ironically, many Americans have long concluded that they made a big boobie in electing Bush (twice). Not only is he a few pennies short of a shilling on domestic and foreign issues, he basically lied them into a war (as Blair did to us).
A wind of change is now blowing through American politics. The signs are that, like disillusionment with the Tories in Britain 11 years ago, it will sweep the old regime away and elect a liberal as President. Not only that. Popular antipathy to Bush is causing Democrat candidates to espouse radical policies: getting out of Iraq, providing health care for all, reforming the tax system and helping the poor.
One sign of change within the Democrat Party is initial rejection of the powerful Clinton machine in favour of Barack Obama. Son of a white mother and Kenyan father, he is the only candidate to have opposed the US invasion of Iraq from the start. If elected President, this civil rights lawyer has promised to bring the troops home and unite the US and world against the common threats of the 21st century: nuclear weapons, climate change, poverty and disease.
However they choose, US voters are clearly in a rebellious mood for change.
Having run the Portsmouth half-marathon for 10 years, degenerating to one mile (with my granddaughter) in last year’s Great South Run, I have a personal stake in its future, which is under threat due to a lack of funding. For a start, it has thankfully cost me many pounds of sweat. For my seven-year old granddaughter – a little pudding – the inspiration of running and watching her (overweight) mum finish the 10 miles cannot be measured in monetary terms. Both have since followed a diet and exercise regime, looking forward to improving their times in this year’s run.
I followed the last Great South Run on my bike through the rain. Raindrops masked my tears at the sight of runners not born to run overcoming pain to reach the finish. For many, not only was this the first step to better health and fitness, it was a selfless effort to raise cash for charity. Let’s fight to save our wonderful Portsmouth celebration.
Published Date:
09/01/2008
Modified Date:
15/01/2008
celebrities
Not a day goes by without some mini celebrity being feted in the media. Not for brains or culture or artistic skills. But for pouting sexily, warbling pop tunes, adorning ‘Noel’s Christmas Cracker’. Some of this might merit a place in entertainment. But not to the virtual exclusion of brain-testing programmes. TV bosses treat viewers as too thick to grasp anything ‘cultural’; they seem to think that if programmes aren’t presented by some dolly bird or Ant and Dec, viewers will switch off.
What an insult to our intelligence. We are not getting stupider; in fact, average IQs are rising. There is no denying that the heavy focus in schools on testing and league tables is leaving teachers too little time to provide adequate drama and music; many young people leave state schools without ever seeing or taking part in plays. The government’s national literacy strategy has overfilled the timetable so that children are now taught to pass tests, not to love reading. One result is that England has fallen from third to 19th in an international league table of children’s literacy.
It doesn’t have to be so. Some Portsmouth schools are putting on plays for the Shakespeare Youth Festival 2008; St Edmund’s is preparing ‘The Taming of the Shrew’.
The government has at last agreed to act. Last week it announced that every child is to have five hours of cultural learning and activity a week. The target is for children to watch and take part in professionally-organised music, dance, theatre and the visual arts.
Whether this will affect cultural philistines like the BBC Director General Mark Thompson remains to be seen. He claims that he can’t put on ‘long and ambitious’ cultural programmes owing to audience boredom and cash cutbacks. Fiddlesticks! Tony Palmer’s rejected film on the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams cost under £130 000 to make, while the BBC reportedly pays Jonathan Ross £6m. As one critic wrote, if Palmer were to change the title of his film to ‘Fxxx Me, I’m a Fat Composer’, it might just grab attention.
It’s a pity that a raunch culture persuades many young women to resemble slags. Ads and fashion tell girls that female empowerment comes from looking sexy – and aggressively so. As do the music and videos of Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Paris Hilton and Minny Mouse herself – Madonna. That trumps brains, character and all other accomplishments that schools try to nurture.
This Christmas toy makers are cashing in with a junior pole-dancing kit, Playboy stationery and thongs for young girls emblazoned with the words ‘Eye Candy’.
Learning, like modesty, was always an optional extra for wanabee celebs. Fame is the ultimate (even to die for as the Omaha shopping mall tragedy showed); celebrity is all. It is a culture that is undermining girls’ sense of worth during their most vulnerable and formative years. They would do well to heed Charlie Dickens’s Bella in Our Mutual Friend: ‘I want to be something so much worthier than the doll in the doll’s house.’
Published Date:
12/12/2007
Modified Date:
09/01/2008
post office closures
No sooner had I got used to my local post office closing (Highland Road) than I am told my East Southsea branch in the Strand is to go the same way. The government plans to shut down 2500 PO branches over the next 18 months. This will have a devastating impact on everyone, especially the older and disabled people like myself. As letters to The News show, from Stamshaw to Southsea, the PO network is an integral part of our community, particularly in areas where there are no other facilities. If East Southsea closes, local residents will have to trek a mile or more to Albert Road or Palmerston Road where parking is virtually impossible and queues will be even longer than they are now.
Listening to the report of imminent closures, you could be forgiven for believing that the government is acting from motives of economic expedience and has had no part in creating conditions that have caused loss of business and falling revenue. In fact, it withdrew vital core ingredients of PO business, those parts that generate income, to ensure that viability was adversely affected.
For the first couple of months after Gordon Brown became prime minister, it seemed that the new administration was pulling back from the privatising excesses of the Blair years. But no. In education, health and the post office, Brown’s commitment is to the continuing market-driven reconstruction of our proudest social attainments: the NHS, state schools and the Royal Mail. Only Scotland and Wales have resisted the worst of the English disease.
In the meantime, highly-paid executives are feathering their nest, neglecting and undervaluing their workforce, ripping off customers and colluding with the government to run down the network. It is no coincidence that in the last five years the pay of top executives has doubled. The bottom line is that the government is determined to close 2500 outlets no matter what impact this will have on their local post office to make everyday transactions and for whom it is an indispensable public service.
One of the consequences of living in a society dominated by religion is the false notion that you have to be religious to be a decent or moral person. With some faiths it is positively dangerous to opt out or go against religious dogma, by, for example, marrying someone outside your religion. In America godlessness can equate with being unelectable to Congress. George Bush used God as one of the reasons for invading Iraq. Blair’s Christian fervour saw a Cabinet packed with believers, including adherents to the dodgy Opus Dei. All over the world people are murdering each other in the name of religion.
Even though a healthy majority of British people adheres to no religion, it is somehow blasphemy to point out the hypocrisy and unreliability of the scriptures. How liberating it would be to see children freed from the religion of their parents or community, simply to rejoice in the world in which they find themselves.
Published Date:
01/11/2007
Modified Date:
12/12/2007
school sponsors
Of all the local schools I visit St Luke’s is one of my favourites. Enthusiastic, down-to-earth kids, dedicated staff and a hard-working, no-nonsense head. Yet its academic results are dreadful: in the three ‘R’s it’s Portsmouth worst school.
So when the good fairy waves a magic wand and promises to turn turnips into ladies fingers or, rather, into an academy, the city’s education bosses fall over themselves in delight. Education chief Eleanor Scott says ‘this is the way the government wants us to go and we are being steered by that policy agenda.’ Education planning boss Mike Fowler claims ‘there is anecdotal evidence that they (the new academies) can improve a range of indicators, like attendance and attainment.’
What a load of cobblers. Academies are private schools paid for partly by sponsors, but it is the tax payer who meets the capital and running costs in full. Sponsors often turn out to be American evangelical nuts or their British converts who draw up the curriculum and teach creationist mumbo-jumbo. In a multi-cultural school like St Luke’s, that would be calamitous. Some sponsors of existing academies refuse to recognise teachers’ unions and include gagging clauses in teachers’ contracts. He who pays the piper plays the tune, so sponsors handpick their own governors.
St Luke’s is a failing school purely and simply because of its inner city catchment area, largely Somerstown which contains immigrants with little English and parents with low aspirations for their children. Almost half its pupils arrive from local primary schools with below-standard reading and writing skills. There are to be no new buildings, no change in catchment area, no reduction in intake (currently some 600 pupils). Even the introduction of highly-paid teachers cannot make a difference to the surroundings.
There is no quick fix. No one can guarantee improvements in examination results. Portsmouth council leader Gerald Vernon-Jackson rightly describes the government’s financial incentives to start up academies as nothing but ‘bribes’; worse still, ‘they could destroy the city’s education ethos.’ Academies merely mask privatisation of our schools.
When my daughter came down from Nottingham to do the Great South Run, she didn’t think she would finish. She was overweight and had done only three miles in training. That she did finish owes much to the wonderful support of the people of Portsmouth standing in the pouring rain. But there was something else that deserves a mention. Portsmouth hospitality and fantastic organisation: from the Scottish giant and his cat who rolled over and tiddled on unwary onlookers, to those really great musical bands: Irish and Scottish, steel and drum, and the band on the Common that played show selections.
When it comes to it, the city and its people can put on a spectacle like no one else. What a shame that television continues to ignore the country’s third largest run festival, outside the London Marathon and the Great North Run. As one runner put it, ‘this is a race I will be doing again and again. Thanks, Portsmouth!’
Published Date:
01/11/2007
Modified Date:
02/11/2007