Pig Air

‘WE could forgive the International Olympic Committee if they treat news that London will have a £10bn east-west rail link in time for the 2012 Olympics with a degree of scepticism.

Crossrail enjoys a successful launch

As the Times remarks, this is a plan that was first proposed 50 years ago and nothing has been done about it in the interim.

Indeed, if London’s Olympic bid included plans for a shuttle of flying pigs to ferry competitors and spectators across the capital, it may have an ounce more credibility.

But the Government says it’s going to happen – so happen it will.

Transport Secretary Alistair Darling will announce tomorrow that a public-private partnership will fund the scheme to link Paddington to Stratford via a series of tunnels under the city.

It is part of a raft of proposals to tackle congestion on the country’s roads, including tolls on some motorways and trunk roads and congestion charging in up to 20 towns and cities.

However, the focus is on what Crossrail will mean for London’s Olympic bid.

And the Guardian says it is just one plank in a concerted effort by the Government to stop suggestions that the bid lacks political support.

Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell has written to MPs and peers and urged them to get behind the 2012 campaign, while Prime Minister Tony Blair will host an Olympic reception at No.10 tonight.

Certainly, the London bid looks technically superior to the Greek bid, if the evidence of the very first marathon is anything to go by.

American scientists have discovered that the very first running of the 26-mile race in 490BC (coincidentally between Marathon and Athens) was scheduled in August, not in September as previously believed.

Only one contestant, Pheidippides, entered, and he collapsed and died moments after completing the course – in what is now presumed to be a case of heat exhaustion.

In London, by contrast, competitors will only have to run the 15 miles between Paddington and Stratford, probably in the pouring rain.’

Posted: 19th, July 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

A Sense Of Fair Play

‘BRITAIN is noted the world over for its sense of fair play – and with reason.

‘We’re up here!’

Okay, so we harass a poor Swiss referee to such an extent that he won’t return home for fear of attack just because he gave a decision in a football match that we didn’t like.

But on the big issues, this sense of fair play shines through.

For instance, how are al-Qaeda supposed to compete on a level playing field with our intelligence services when there is such a disparity of resources?

It doesn’t seem fair, does it? And that is why we applaud the news in the Independent that the police have taken to leaving secret dossiers on the roadside for terrorists to read at their will.

In the most recent case, a passing motorist last night spoiled the fun by picking up the plans which had been left on the verge of the Southern Perimeter Road at Heathrow.

The dossier, compiled by Scotland Yard’s SO18 anti-terrorist Aviation Security Team, apparently showed 62 sites at the airport where al-Qaeda were most likely to launch an attack.

More useful to the terrorists, however, would have been the details of patrol times, deployment of rooftop snipers, use of dog units, as well as escape routes, evacuation plans and road closures.

Terrorists may destroy us and all that belongs to us, but it’s good to know that they’ll never destroy the things that made this country great.’

Posted: 19th, July 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Covering Its Tracks

‘DON’T worry, the Government’s famous integrated transport policy has not been derailed permanently – just delayed for a few decades.

‘I think they got so hungry waiting to move, they all ate each other, guv’

The ten year plan to make the trains better has been replaced, as the Times says, by the new plan to make trains simply run on time.

This new mission will be undertaken with a less than Teutonic zeal since Alistair Darling, the Transport Secretary, wants to make just 90% of trains run to timetable.

Those passengers unlucky enough to take a trip on one of the one in ten trains allowed to come and go as they please are advised to pack a decent lunch, a flask of hot soup and tell friends and family of your plans and how much you love them.

What’s more, the cunning new plan will mean that train companies will not be permitted to just roll out extra services to ferry their disgruntled customers around, but will have to pack more passengers onto existing services.

The Government has seen the figures and noticed that on carriage 2B of the 7:54 service from Newbury to Paddington there is enough air for one small boy or one large rodent to survive – and until this carriage is utterly full, no new services will be implemented.

And there is more, and the Telegraph heard Darling say yesterday that the Strategic Rail Authority, the organisation set up by John Prescott just four years ago with the directive to regulate the rail companies, is to be scrapped.

Its powers should, according to yesterday’s published White Paper, be passed to Whitehall.

Network Rail will take over the SRA’s running of timetables and line assessment, and safety issues will transfer from the Health and Safety Executive to the Office of the Rail Regulator.

Of course, as with all rail transfers, things are tight and connections may be missed.

So the 500 pen-pushers relocating from the SRA to the NR or ORR are advised to allow plenty of time for their journey and to drive or walk to their new offices, lest they be late or never arrive at all…’

Posted: 16th, July 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

TV Crimes

‘IF statistics really are worse than damn lies, the Office for National Statistics must be home to every con man, pergurer and charlatan in town.

‘If TV adds on 10lbs, how many cameras are on Vanessa Feltz?’

But they do produce a lot of work, and not a week passes without us learning how many blonde women on Merseyside shave their legs on a Tuesday and what a 15-year-old boy in Cheam can buy for £4.27.

Today’s news from the sink of falsehood has been noticed by the Guardian and stupidly passed on as some kind of fact to its readers.

The story is that the average British couple spend just two hours on a weekday in each other’s company.

While this in enough for some, and too much for others, the allotted time for family affairs lowers to just 78 minutes when there are children in the household.

Reading on, we learn that those two hours are, in actual fact, a more precise 126 minutes.

And of those, 51 minutes are passed not in conversation or even in a row but in watching the likes of Lawrence Llewellyn Bowen paint some colour-blind homeowner’s attic room.

TV rules the roost, and that’s bad since the Telegraph has leant that TV can make you fat.

We don’t means that a TV camera adds 10lbs to a presenter’s frame, but that you can get fat just by watching the magic box.

The hold-the-presses news is that children aged between five and 15 who spend more than two hours a day watching TV (i.e. all of them) tend to be fatter than those who do not.

Yes, it’s true, sitting still and vegetating in front of the magic box will not make you slim – regardless of how many times you burn calories by flicking the buttons on your remote control and blinking.

A Dr Robert Hancox, who published his cutting-edge research in the Lancet, discovered this amazing truth after studying the lifestyles of 1,000 children born in 1972 and 1973.

The expert recommends that children watch no more than one to two hours of TV a day, and that less than one hour would be even better – and, we suppose (although not being Doctors, we can only guess) that watching no TV might be the ideal.

However, the biggest surprise is that the study found no link between TV viewing and blood pressure.

Odd news to anyone who has turned purple with a hint of red and maroon after seeing what the aforesaid Bowen has done to some poor sod’s house with our TV licence money…’

Posted: 16th, July 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

The White Angel

‘JUST think – if designer babies had been possible in 1962, Vanessa Feltz might never have been the woman she is today.

Khan’s place in the German goal could soon be under threat

While such a fantasy makes anti-cloning campaigners reconsider their positions, the Guardian brings news of how the Human Genetics Commission will soon be debating such wonderment.

As the Guardian says, the HGC has just launched a three-month programme called Choosing The Future to study the nation’s attitudes to new developments in genetic science, including those designer babies.

This will prove to be an interesting study, weighing up the pros of a Feltz-free world with the cons of a planet where everyone adheres to a man-made norm (although this is already the way in large parts of Hollywood).

One man, however, will not be looking on with great interest because he already knows what all people should look like.

Herr Jurgen Rieger is a German, who, the Independent says, is planning to open an Aryan-style baby farm in Lower Saxony.

Having spoken at length about the “disastrous effects of bastardising races”, the 57-year-old former member of the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party says that “the white giants are coming”.

Should Herr Rieger get the go ahead from the local politicos, wannabe white giants can apply for an intense course of shagging other wannbe white giants at Heisenhof, a turn-of-the-century manor house.

The rest of us can just look forward the to the new breed, who will able to reach the top shelf of newsagents with enviable ease and replace Oliver Khan in goal for the German national football team…’

Posted: 16th, July 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Death On The Tigris

‘IF Lord Butler were a thriller writer, those who have read his Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction would be demanding that he finish it.

‘It’s a no-one dunnit’

The protagonists in Butler’s homage to Agatha Christie are all represented in no little detail.

The scene is set with aplomb. The bombs are dropped and many are killed in gruesome fashion. But when it comes to finding out who whodunit, there’s nothing.

The result is, as the Guardian says, that although there was a litany of failure, no-one actually pulled the trigger. Everyone and no-one is to blame.

The Independent hands its front page over to the critics to summarise Butler’s work.

It reads: “The intelligence dossier: flawed; The dossier: dodgy; “The 45-minute claim: wrong; Dr Brian Jones: vindicated; Iraq’s links to al-Qa’ida: unproven; The public: misled; The case for war: exaggerated. And who was to blame? No-one.”

So why then is Tony Blair grinning like an estate agent who has just pulled off a successful gazump on the front page of the Telegraph?

Does he know something we do not? Surely, what with the deaths of British servicemen in Iraq and that land in turmoil, Blair should be not be seen to be quite so happy with his lot.

He did say in the Commons yesterday that he was “proud” to have overthrown Saddam’ Hussein’s “vile dictatorship”.

And he told how he had “searched his conscience” in the light of current developments – and written his own investigative Blair Report in which he was found to be utterly free of any blame, a nice family man and worthy of sainthood.

But perhaps today the smirk will not be quite so broad. The Butler report was, it seems, not about finding a single damning line on Blair and his regime but geared to be taken as a whole.

The Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland concurs with his notion, and says that while the mandarin Lord Butler did not “thrust a dagger into the Prime Minister or anyone else”, he did present the press, politicians and the public with “an elegant, walnut-encased, velvet-lined box full of sharpened knives” with which to play at their leisure.

Another commentator, the Times’ Simon Jenkins, says that the report is “payback for seven years of humiliation, sofa government, initiativitis, cronyism and spin”.

Take the line that Blair “lessened the support of the mechanism of government for the collective responsibility of the Cabinet”.

This sounds very much like President Blair is getting his comeuppance.

Only no-one seems to have told Tony that he’s for it. And given the Butler Review’s fine print, we may have to wait longer than 45 minutes to find out what fate awaits our dear leader…’

Posted: 15th, July 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Ps And Qs

‘HAVING seen Tony Blair try to squirm and worm his way out of trouble in yesterday’s Prime Minister’s Question Time, we are delighted to hear that Ofcom is to relax its rules on swearing.

‘And as for that ginger wanker…’

From next March, when the rules governing what can be broadcast are changed, the Times says there will less need for guarded words, fine rhetoric and verbal acrobatics.

Come next spring, Michael Howard can just lean over the despatch box and call Tony Blair a fucking jumped up little twat.

Of course, parliamentary protocol will still play a part, and Howard may have to include a qualifier, allowing Blair to become a Right Honourable fucking jumped up little twat.

But Howard might like to call the old smirker something worse.

Ofcom, the Office of Communications, will remove prescriptions of “taste and decency” from its broadcasting code, thus allowing copious amounts of swearing, should the part demand it.

And that includes what the Times terms the “c-word”, which is deemed to be worse than the “f-word”, having came top of a survey by the Broadcasting Standards Commission to find the most shocking word around.

However, such words will still be only allowed out after the 9pm watershed, so inuring Blair from being of the receiving end of any poignant criticism at PMQs.

Unless of course a debate into why he is such a complete f-word c-word drags on past the normal hour…or Jeremy Paxman interviews him on Newsnight.’

Posted: 15th, July 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Space Balls

‘EVEN before the Beagle 2 probe whimpered its last from Mars, Britain’s space exploration programme was in trouble.

Blast off!

Then to the rescue came David Beckham, who stepped up to the penalty spot and sent a ball into orbit as only he can.

But all good things must come to an end, and the Independent learns that Beagle 3, aka the “ball of shame”, has re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere and is now in the possession of one Pablo Carral, a 25-year-old Spaniard.

While others had long gone home, Pablo waited in row Q at the stadium in Lisbon.

He knew from his physics lessons that what goes up must come down and that the ball-shaped satellite would return from whence it blasted off.

And his patience paid off – massively. Pablo has just stuck the ball on an internet auction site with a price tag of…10 million euros.

And, such is its unique scientific value that the ball has already attracted a bid equal to its guide price – and the bids are still rolling in.

Of course, bidding is one thing, paying over the cash is something else entirely.

And while we understand that ebay, the website auctioning the ball, will only allow bids to be withdrawn in special circumstances, not having the cash must feature pretty high.

Buy Pablo is happy with his lot, and a little amazed by events.

“The incredible thing,” says Pablo, “was that the ball reached us: we were so far from the goal.”

But no further than Mars…’

Posted: 15th, July 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Butler’s Dunnit

‘BRACE yourself for a flurry of “What Butler Saw” headlines as Lord Butler of Brockwell today publishes his report into intelligence failures in the build-up to the Iraq war.

‘Get Butler – and get me out of here’

There may even be a few “I’ll Get You, Butler” headline-grabbing exclamations from the people who come off worse.

Like John Scarlett, chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, who appears on the Independent’s cover under the message, “Scarlett Must Go, Say MPs”.

Only, where will he go?

When Americans go, they go away – George Tenet, director of the CIA, resigned his post over failures in his department.

When the British go, they go onto better things – Scarlett has gone up the food chain and will take up his post as head of MI6 on August 1.

This is strange and unusual punishment for a man who accepted “ownership” of the Government’s now infamous dossier on Iraq’s armaments, which included the terrifying fact that we could all be dead in 45 minutes – a claim no more real than Jordan’s breasts.

That such hyperbole at best and lies at worst was located in a document signed off by the Government might be seen to spell disaster for Tony Blair.

But, as the Times says, the Prime Minister and his Government are likely to come in for some trenchant, but “not lethal”, criticism.

The report will criticise meetings that took place in his private office between Blair, his staff and intelligence operatives when no official minutes were taken.

And that’s just about as bad as things get for Tony, who, the Times reports, is delighted to have learnt that the report contains no “silver bullet”.

Indeed, to the man and woman in the street listening out for the scream of approaching WMDs, the report seems to contain very little substance of much interest at all.

Although it’s all described within Whitehall as being “tough and embarrassing”, the fact is that Blair and his regime will be cleared of lying about those fearsome WMDs and of taking the country into an illegal war.

So that’s that. The Butler Review makes some recommendations, is critical of certain practices and an unelected spook, but does not bring down the Government.

Butler and his team – who met in secret and, as the Times says in a page topped by the headline, “Butler: Stooge Or Exterminator?”, reported directly to the, er, Government – have completed their mission.

And just as soon as Iraq is made stable and the oil is pumping freely, Tony and his coterie will have completed theirs…’

Posted: 14th, July 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

The Gong Show

‘ASIDE from Tony Blair’s reasons for going to war in Iraq, the other big mystery in British politics is how the honours selection committee chooses whom should receive what gongs and when.

For services to texting

Just why did Blair’s old lollipop lady get an MBE for services to transport, while his PE teacher was awarded the loftier OBE, and his hairdresser the yet more coveted CBE?

These are questions that reach into the very heart of British politics and cause it to skip a beat.

But no more. The Telegraph reports that the Public Administration Committee wants the Order of the British Empire (OBE) should be replaced by a less imperialistic Order of British Excellence.

And, unless awarded at the Queen’s suggestion, knighthoods and damehoods should be phased out.

The committee also recommends the abolition of “automatic” honours for civil servants, who get to change the letterhead on their official notepads simply for doing their jobs.

A bad week for the Civil Service gets worse and worse as the committee also calls for the organisation’s highest ranking suits to be excluded from receiving more “exclusive” honours, like the Order of the Bath (created in the Middle Ages) and the Order of St Michael and St George (founded in 1818).

Having seen yesterday’s news about the cull in their numbers, very soon the only order civil servants will be in line for is the famous Order of the Boot.

But not everyone is in agreement that the honours system is outdated and anachronistic.

Jilly Copper OBE tells the Guardian that she is “thrilled I am going to be Empirish rather than Excellent”.

“Oh come on!” says Cooper. “Are they going to change the Victoria Cross to the Common Cross because they are so anti-monarchy? There is an obsession with semantics these days.”

Obsession or not, the Times hears the committee’s members explain the reasons for the call to abandon Empire.

“The title Order of the British Empire was now considered to be unacceptable, being thought to embody values that are no longer shared by many of the country’s population,” says the report, before harping on about an “inclusive society” and its “sensible adaptation” of past wrongs.

It’s all very worthy, we’re sure. But one more question concerns us – how does an MP make it onto this committee?

And what do you get for being on it? A medal – or just the title and kudos?’

Posted: 14th, July 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Getting Away From Them All

‘WE’VE all been sitting in that remote island bar, sipping the local brew and getting away from it all, when someone walks in and says: “Fancy seeing you here!”

When in Rome…Benidorm, Ibiza, Faliraki…

Yeah, fancy. Who would have thought that, having schlepped for five hours across dense jungle, you’d be confronted by the grinning sunburnt face of old whatshisname from remedial English with Mr Bunce?

It’s not without reason that a study of holidaymakers by market research group Mintel, now reported in the Telegraph, finds that the one thing all Britons despise above all others is sharing their resort with their countrymen.

Amanda Lintott, who worked on this cutting-edge report, says that the poor reputation of British people abroad means many of us do not want to hang out with our kin.

“Also,” says she, “if you go on holiday and see British people, you don’t feel like you have left Britain.”

The facts are that 32% of Britons polled said they were “put off” resorts if it is popular with other Brits, against 13% who complained about other nationalities.

Miss Lintott also makes the notable claim that British tourists prefer to be surrounded by “well-heeled and sophisticated” French, Russian and German holidaymakers.

Being in their company makes us Brits feel “a bit special”.

But while spotting a holidaying German is easy (he’s on your sunbed), how can you tell what nationality your fellow holidaymakers are just by sight?

After all, it’s not like they all wear a badge – or a football shirt like us Brits…’

Posted: 14th, July 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Stamp Them Out

‘ANYONE who, like us, has just received a Christmas card from last year will have noticed the stamp.

Merry Christmas one and all

The stamp’s picture of a pissed-up teenager vomiting in the gutter on Christmas Eve is seasonal and traditional, but it is not what the Church of England was hoping for.

And, as the Times says, the Church has been pondering the rights and wrongs of such images at its General Synod in York.

The conclusion it has reached is that the Royal Mail is the font of all evil and has been taking the Christ out of Christmas by producing unreligious stamps.

The CoE is now demanding that the Royal Mail produces Christian stamps to affix to our seasonal cards or else…the clerics will be very, very displeased.

Dr Christian Baxter, principal of St John’s Theological College, says: “Christmas is a Christian festival and the most important one at that.

“We are asking for a religious stamp every year for Christmas.”

Well, a stamp would make nice change from a jumper and pair of socks.

And Timothy Royle, representing the Gloucester Diocese, concurs.

“Other faiths should be able to celebrate their own festivals,” he says, “but Christmas is fundamentally a Christian event here.”

However, things will have to wait a while yet, since the Telegraph reports that this coming season’s stamps are once more based on a secular theme – so the next set of stamps with a Christian theme will not be released until 2005.

Which means the members of the Synod should see their campaign bear fruit sometime in 2009 – when their cards and good wishes from 2005 finally arrive…’

Posted: 13th, July 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

This Year’s Brown

‘IF Gordon Brown can cut 104,000 jobs from the Civil Service payroll by 2008 and make no difference to the Government’s productivity, it makes us wonder what these people are being employed to do.

Brown plans to make one more public servant unemployed

Yesterday, the Chancellor announced his pre-election spending review and explained how his plans to improve public services would result in the loss of many public sector jobs.

While the Times’ news that the cull and other cuts will save £21bn a year seems good, not everyone is best pleased – around 104,000 people, at a guess.

One of the disgruntled is Brendan Barber, the TUC General Secretary, whose membership is due for realignment over the coming three years.

“These cuts cannot be made without hitting the quality of public services,” says he. “They will deal Civil Service morale a bitter blow.”

That they will. But back to our original question: how can cuts be made and no difference be felt?

Surely, these men and women in bowler hats don’t all work on the Butler report, that investigation into the Government’s handling of the those Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction, which is due to close soon and so render them redundant?

But Brown prefers to explain the cuts away as the products of a great investment in technology, “modernising our [the Government’s] ability to provide back office and transactional services”.

For those of you who wish to find out more, the Times (“The Big Spend”) and the Guardian (Spending review 2004) both include lengthy sections debating the prosaic Chancellor’s reallocation of funds.

And in reading them you may find out more about the Chancellor, the man who is, the Independent says on its front page, still very much at odds with Tony Blair.

Indeed, some of Brown’s allies – dubbed “Brownites” rather than the more approachable “Brownies” by the paper – believe Blair will announce his departure from the top job later this month, thus paving the way for Brown.

The Guardian illustrates this transfer with a large front-page cartoon of a smiling Brown (artist’s impression) wearing a shirt with No.11 on the front handing over a bag of cash to another smiling Brown clad in a No.10 shirt.

So here is Gordon Brown planning the country’s future while simultaneously mapping out his own.

Or, if the Guardian’s picture is read another way, here’s Chancellor Gordon giving with one hand and Prime Minster Brown taking it back with another…’

Posted: 13th, July 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Signs of Intelligence

‘HAVING studied the Government’s spending review in depth, the only code many Whitehall mandarins will be trying to solve today is how they came to be handed a P45.

‘Ever hear of a Tony Bliar, guv?’

But let’s look at that combination of letters and words again, and see if P could have some hidden meaning and 45 might point to something more sinister.

What about P = total annihilation and 45 is the number of minutes we will take to reach it? That’s one for Lord Butler and other puzzle fiends to ponder.

And here’s another puzzle in the Telegraph, where the paper has seen a test set by the Government’s intelligence communications headquarters (GCHQ) to determine who has what it takes to wear a shiny suit.

The test asks candidates to decode six passages of text, all of which have been taken from published books, including the Bible and a Sherlock Holmes mystery.

When you have cracked the code, you then have to discover the hidden six-letter word.

Budding spooks can work things out for themselves, wait until the answer is published into tomorrow’s Telegraph (somewhere in the classifieds section, we suppose) or search the web.

The test was posted on the home page of the GCHQ website just three weeks ago, and a large number of correct replies were sent in.

The number of clever respondents was initially greeted with a sense of triumph by GCHQ, until spooks monitoring internet chatter noted that the answers were doing the rounds on the web.

What this means for the intelligent services will only become clear once the current crop of recruits has been processed.

But don’t be too surprised if in the future what passes for intelligence proves to be no more than sexed-up nonsense and reports cobbled together from college theses freely available on the net.

Business as usual, then…’

Posted: 13th, July 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Age Of Empire

‘EVERY government succumbs in the end to a desire to return this country to a mythical Golden Age.

‘Keep out of the white and into the red…’

With Maggie Thatcher, it was a nostalgia for Victorian values – the same values that would not have even given her the vote, let alone the chance to be Prime Minister.

With John Major, it was of course the disastrous Back To Basics campaign – long shadows on cricket grounds, warm beer, old maids cycling to Holy Communion and Tory ministers banging their secretaries.

And with Tony Blair, it is his Billy Bunterisation of the country’s schools, with the proposals for a return of school uniform, school houses and competitive sport.

This morning, we learn that this revolution is to go even further with Ofsted recommending that more time is devoted to teaching pupils about the British Empire.

‘Critics of present teaching,’ explains the Telegraph, ‘argue that children primarily learn about history through the eyes of those who suffered injustice at British hands – such as slaves.

‘They do not receive an adequate picture of the political and military history of the empire which would enable them to understand its significance and legacy.’

At the moment, the paper says, children are more likely to learn about the American Plains Indians than the empire builders.

They are taught about the likely experiences of soldiers’ and sailors’ wives and not about Clive of India, for example.

Chris McGovern, director of the History Curriculum Association, said: ‘What us being taught in schools is the empire as a means of promoting a guilt complex.

‘There is only an interest in it if it can be shown as part of social education, to show injustice.’

Instead, says the Telegraph, it should explain ‘why our concept of nationhood is civic rather than ethnic’; why English is spoken on every continent; and why, twice in the past century, millions volunteered to cross half the globe to fight for a country they had never seen.

It also explains ‘why Britain has so much more in common with her former colonies than with her geographical neighbours’.

In other words, why we hate the French and shouldn’t join the euro.’

Posted: 12th, July 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Speed Gun

‘EDUCATION is only one of the tools in the Government’s armoury as it battles to turn the clock back and return the country to a better age.

A getaway car

[Actually, given Tony Blair’s oft-repeated mantra, education probably counts as three tools – or about 10, after the Treasury has finished with it.]

High technology provides another tool which will help achieve the same goal – a device that can bring speeding cars to a halt at the flick of a switch.

The Guardian reports that police forces in Britain and the US have ordered tests on the system that delivers a blast of radio waves powerful enough to knock out a car’s electronics.

It was devised by David Giri, a physics professor at the University of California, who left to set up a company called ProTech to develop the invention.

A prototype is due to be ready next summer – but Dr Giri concedes that it will only work on newish cars.

‘It works on most cars built in the past 10 years because their engines are controlled by computer chips,’ he says. ‘If we can disrupt the computer, we can stop the car.’

Presumably, though, if the criminals have any sense, they will quickly trade in their Ford Mondeos or whatever they drive these days for an old Hillman Avenger or Morris Minor.

The cops can then sell off their expensive motors and return to a more innocent time travelling by bike and playfully cuffing the ears of children caught scrumping in their neighbours’ orchards…’

Posted: 12th, July 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Air Brained

‘FORTY scientists from seven British universities are to travel to the Azores today to follow a plume of air as it heads across the Atlantic Ocean.

The Intercontinental Transport of Ozone and Precursors programme’s HQ

Yes, that’s right – 40 scientists have managed to convince their employers that they need to travel to the islands to look at air.

The Independent says the aim of the mission is not purely to get a suntan, but also to see if American smog and exhaust fumes are harming us here in Britain.

Dr Alastair Lewis, of the Intercontinental Transport of Ozone and Precursors programme, explains.

‘It’s highly likely that air leaving the States contains a cocktail of nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons which are emitted from vehicle exhausts and power stations.

‘We want to know how these will react together on the way to Europe and whether they will form ozone and particles, both of which can be harmful to humans.’

Important work, we are sure you would agree, and work that demands the presence of at least 40 scientists (all of whom will have flown there on a gas-guzzling jumbo).

We just hope that they manage to keep track of the particular plume of air they’re following all the way to, say, the Amalfi Coast, the Greek islands and beyond…’

Posted: 12th, July 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Hello, Mr Chips

‘WHY, hello again, Mr Chips. Labour yesterday revealed its big new plan to improve state education in this country – and it smacks of a return to traditional values.

‘I feel a real sense of pride in my school again, Jenkins’ ‘Me too, Barrett’

Of course, it smacks of nothing at all because smacking is all but banned, as are other traditional punishments like caning, flogging, buggering etc.

But, in what the Guardian describes as “a pre-election package unashamedly designed to win disillusioned middle-class voters back to the state sector”, we are to see the return of school uniform, a house system and competitive sport.

The Telegraph says the “back-to-basics” agenda is part of the Government’s much-trailed five-year education plan, which is designed to give schools more autonomy.

Of course, this autonomy depends on the schools doing exactly what the Government wants them to do.

For instance, Education Secretary Charles Clarke said he expected all schools to have uniforms.

“They help give pupils pride in their school,” he said, “and make them ambassadors for their school in the community.”

They also make pupils readily identifiable targets to other kids in the town, but maybe a bit of playful rough ‘n’ tumble is no bad thing.

We have no doubt that if things look like getting out of hand, the local bobby will be on hand to administer a clip round the ear and send the warring parties home to their parents.

Moves to reintroduce competitive sport are also likely to cause some confusion – only last week we reported how 50% of schools have now abandoned the traditional sports day in favour of non-competitive group activities.

And we wonder how reintroducing lumpy custard will encourage more children to stay on at school – the Independent reports that the OECD put the UK 27th out of 30 countries for the percentage of youngsters in full-time education after the age of 16.

Happily, however, the plans have united the broadsheet press – they all think the whole package stinks, albeit for different reasons.

The Times complains that grammar schools won’t be given the same freedoms as non-selective schools, the Telegraph optimistically suggests that it is evidence that the Tories have Labour on the run and the Guardian calls it “a leap in the dark”.

“If it isn’t how Tesco operate,” it asks of the new fragmented system, “why is the Prime Minister so keen on it?”

Far better to hand over the running of the nation’s schools to the giant supermarket chain and have done with it.’

Posted: 9th, July 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Heir Brained

‘IF anyone is likely to welcome Labour’s back-to-the-future education policy, it is Prince Charles.

An accident of birth

The old crank is a sucker for anything with the word ‘traditional’ in front of it, whether it’s agriculture, architecture or apple sauce.

But it is the Prince’s championing of alternative health therapies that has landed him in hot water this morning, with one of the country’s leading doctors accusing the heir to the throne of ‘overstepping the mark’.

Professor Michael Baum told the Times that the medical establishment was exasperated by the Prince’s call for funding of a field that was his ‘personal prejudice’.

‘It is quite inappropriate for the Prince to use his influence to try and persuade cancer patients to adopt remedies without scientific proof,’ he said.

And in an open letter to the British Medical Journal, Professor Baum, a leading breast cancer specialist, went further.

‘Over the past 20 years, I have treated thousands of patients with cancer,’ he writes. ‘My authority comes with a knowledge built on 40 years of study. Your authority rests on an accident of birth.’

The Times says the Prince has been banging on about alternative therapies for two decades since addressing the British Medical Association’s 150th anniversary dinner.

Then, he likened the medical establishment to the Tower of Pisa, and attacked their suspicion and hostility to ‘anything unorthodox and unconventional’.

This would presumably be the same Prince Charles who has spent the past 20 years attacking architects who dared propose anything unorthodox or unconventional.’

Posted: 9th, July 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Blindingly Stupid

‘BRITAIN may have an idiot for an heir to the throne and more idiots per capita than any other country in the world, but we don’t have a monopoly on idiocy by any means.

‘Even I can see they’re a bunch of idiots, Pavot’

This morning, we salute the idiots at the University of New Brunswick (UNB) in Canada who told Yvan Tessier that he couldn’t attend a five-week English language immersion course because his guide dog only understood French.

The university claimed that allowing M Tessier to speak French to his dog Pavot would pollute the purity of the English-only classes.

But this morning the Indy reports that UNB has relented in the face of mass protests and a worldwide e-mail campaign.

Pavot responds to 50 commands in French but, as part of the compromise deal, M Tessier, from Fracophone Quebec, will be limited to a dozen.

University spokesman Brad James said: ‘We have 250 students from across the world who come here for the course so we have to preserve the integrity of the course for them.’

A case of the blind leading the dumb, perhaps.’

Posted: 9th, July 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

The Trial

‘WHEN American officials were casting round for a precedent for the judicial aberration that is Guantanamo, they happened across a book in the Pentagon library.

Guilty until proven guilty

It was by a gentleman called Franz Kafka, it was called The Trial and it seemed to contain a blueprint for the kind of ‘justice’ they were interested in dispensing.

There were a couple of things that needed adapting – in the book, for instance, the accused is allowed to walk free between his regular appearances in court.

But essentially it has acted as a kind of manual for the US administration’s treatment of the prisoners, who have now been held for 2.5 years without charge, trial or access to a lawyer.

And then the US Supreme Court decided to stick its nose in, ruling last week that the 595 prisoners still held on Cuba were entitled to challenge their detentions in a US court.

Here was a problem – US courts still hold by quaint legal notions such as presumed innocence, the burden of proof and the right to representation.

Hell, they even let the public into the courtroom.

But you have to get up very early to get one over on this administration – and this morning we marvel at President Bush and his chums’ response.

The Guardian explains that the US court whose job it will be to review the detentions will in fact be another military tribunal – the Combat Status Review Tribunal.

And – you guessed it – the detainees will still not have access to a lawyer and nor will the hearings be open to the public.

Instead, prisoners will be assigned a military officer (of lower rank than the review panel officers) whose job it will be to advise them on proceedings.

As a concession, the Pentagon will allow prisoners to testify in their own defence and – in theory at least – to call witnesses.

Clive Stafford Smith, the lawyer of a British detainee, called it ‘a total smokescreen’.

‘The supreme court’s ruling is very clear,’ he says. ‘They have a right to an independent tribunal.’

Not that the prisoners themselves know that – the Bush administration has also cunningly circumvented the supreme court ruling by not telling the detainees of their new rights.

Over to Steve Watt, a senior fellow at the Centre for Constitutional Rights, which filed the lawsuits at the supreme court.

‘If they don’t know the courthouse doors are open to them,’ he asks, ‘how can they bring a challenge to their detention?’

The answer is, of course, that they can’t. It’s brilliant, beyond even the diabolical imagination of Kafka himself.’

Posted: 8th, July 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

A Write Mess

‘TONY Blair has of course been working tirelessly behind the scenes to secure the release of the four Britons still held at Guantanamo.

‘Raise one hand if you can’t count’

‘George, I’m sorry to have to ask, but I’m getting it in the neck at home. Will you let them go please?’

‘No can do, Tony.’

‘Of course you can’t. I understand. I’m sorry that I even asked. Another pretzel?’

However, the Guardian says the British government is now under pressure at least to tell its citizens of the supreme court ruling when officials next visit the camp.

And it says Blair risks another clash (similar to the one outlined above) with his closest ally if the US refuses to allow UK officials to do so.

However, in the spirit of compromise, may we at Anorak take this opportunity to propose a solution that will keep everyone happy?

We suggest that UK officials hand the detainees a piece of paper on which the supreme court ruling is explained.

Now, assuming the four Britons detained at Guantanamo share the same literacy skills as the rest of their countrymen, they will not understand a word.

Therefore, the Yanks will be happy, Tony Blair can say he’s done his duty and the four prisoners can look forward to growing old in orange.

Sadly, there they will not get to reap the benefits of the Government’s latest five-year plan – this time in education – to devolve more money and power to individual schools.

The plan builds on the success of the last seven years in which the Government has created a country in which a quarter of all children leave primary school without knowing the three Rs from their elbow.

Even the Prime Minister admitted that the figures were ‘a scandal’, although he claimed that barely half of 11-year-olds were able to read, write or count properly when the Tories left office in 1997.

However, as the Telegraph says, ‘such a direct comparison is difficult to justify because in 1999, after disappointing results in Labour’s first two years in office, it lowered the standard pass mark’.

‘Not surprisingly,’ it adds, ‘this led to an immediate apparent improvement in literacy levels.’

Well, it worked once. Why not just try the same trick again?’

Posted: 8th, July 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Darwinners And Losers

‘ONE, two, three, four, five, six, seven…

‘For every action, there must be an equal and opposite reaction’

It may have only taken God seven days to create the universe, but it has taken his son Tony Blair seven years to make bog all difference to the educational standards in this country.

Now as part of its promise of more choice for parents, the Independent says the Government is handing over a whole swath of state-financed schools to private sponsors to run.

To people like Sir Peter Vardy, an evangelical Christian whose first school, Emmanuel City College in Gateshead, is accused of teaching creationism in science.

And to people like us at Anorak, who have just taken over the syllabus at an inner city school in Manchester where we are also overseeing a revolution in science teaching.

As well as creationism, pupils there learn that the moon really is made of cheese, William Tell’s son invented gravity and the Big Bang was caused by Vanessa Feltz…’

Posted: 8th, July 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

A Great Britton

‘YESTERDAY, Tory leader Michael Howard was pictured deep in conversation with a cow; this morning, he is seen chatting with Fern Britton.

‘There’s only one David Mellor!’

There is of course so little connection between the two that we’re not sure why we even mentioned it.

Yesterday’s cow – Blackbrook Natasha – was admittedly a beauty and the longhorn breed champion at the Royal Agricultural Society’s annual show to boot.

But Fern is a respected TV presenter, host of This Morning with Philip Schofield and a true heavyweight in the world of political interviewing.

So, Mikey H and his wife Sandy would not have been expecting an easy ride when they sat down on the famous blue sofa to face Phil and Fern’s questions.

And so it proved.

‘What did he hope to accomplish?’ the hosts asked.

‘To make this country a better place to live in!’ MC Mikey parried.

‘And you’ll be there every step of the way, will you?’ Phil tried to ambush Sands.

‘Yes’ was the former model’s witty rejoinder.

‘What was he like at DIY and cooking?’

‘Hopeless!’

And so the interview went on, full of thrust and counter-thrust – a gladiatorial contest of such ferocity that, says the Guardian ‘it was painfully obvious the Howards didn’t want to be there’.

And we can understand why when no question was off limits to our intrepid interviewers (although time pressures prevented them bringing up the results of yesterday’s Times poll).

Even table-tennis came under Phil and Fern’s microscopic gaze, as they asked whether the health of the Howards’ relationship was based on a shared love of the game.

‘I wouldn’t say it’s all about that,’ Mikey said. ‘But you need some exercise… I know people think this is hilarious but you can play it pretty strenuously.’

And with that Phil presented the Tory boss with a Liverpool football shirt bearing the number 10 and Howard’s name.

Suddenly, the combination of strenuous exercise and football shirts was too much for us as memories of another Tory MP came flooding back…’

Posted: 7th, July 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

A Clean Sweep

‘TOUGH on grime, tough on the causes of grime.

‘I’d much rather be smacking the kids’

Not Tony Blair’s credo on which he hopes to win a third term in office, but the Telegraph’s take on a poll that suggests we spend more time doing housework than our European neighbours.

According to a Mintel study, only three per cent of Brits don’t do any cleaning at all, compared with six per cent of French, 16 per cent of Spanish and a massive 20% of Germans.

Additionally, the British are more house-proud than any other nation, with one on five saying they spend a lot of time cleaning.

But Michael Howard is not alone in leaving the household chores to his wife.

Only 52% of men spend a fair amount of time cleaning compared with 81% of women – although this ratio is still better than in Germany, say, where a third of men don’t help out at all.

Nevertheless, it is clearly nothing short of a disgrace that this disparity should exist at all – and we hope it is only a matter of time before the Government legislates to put matters right.

And what better time than now? Carpe diem, as a man called Horace used to say.

If parents devote all the free time they have now that they’re no longer allowed to spend hours smacking their kids to household chores, we’ll really put the Germans to shame.’

Posted: 7th, July 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment