School strikes over staff safety

You'll have seen the news about the school that went on strike yesterday over 'pupil behaviour'. An impressive seventy staff members attended the NUT / NASUWT picket line of the smallish Darwen Vale High School.


The Head commented that "I am disappointed that the trade unions have chosen to take this action. The vast majority of pupils at Darwen Vale behave well and take their education seriously. We are in discussions with the unions and with the staff around how we can best resolve this situation so that staff feel well supported when they do need to deal with behaviour issues."

For me this totally misses the issue. The staff are *not* taking strike action against the behaviour of the kids, they are taking action against *management* behaviour which has led to any allegation, no matter how flimsy, leading to staff suspensions - more than 6% of staff members over the last year. It's the management eagerness to suspend staff that's the problem, not the fact that a minority of pupils are not well behaved.

While the head talks about staff feeling well supported it appears that she has pursued a policy of consistently taking action against staff members and making it impossible for them to enforce, for example, the no mobile phone policy.

The Independent writes that "The striking staff members claim the arrival of £80,000-a-year head Hilary Torpey has resulted in the sudden deterioration in relations between management and staff." This seems like an important point to me as much of the press are playing up the 'bad kids' angle, but surely the emphasis has to be on the 'ruthless management' part of the equation.

Simon Jones, National Executive Member for the NUT, said:

"Members are taking strike action as a last resort because of the head teacher’s continued denials that there is a problem with pupil behaviour in the school and her refusal to engage properly with staff and unions to find effective solutions to these challenges. Staff and unions have been raising concerns for the last two terms but the Head has rejected repeated requests for earlier meetings to try to resolve this dispute informally.

"We regret that this industrial action is necessary and recognise that it will affect pupils’ education for a day. However we have timed the strike to avoid disrupting any examinations taking place and in the long run we believe resolving these behaviour management issues will benefit all the staff and pupils.

"Negotiations are due to resume after the Easter holidays and it is hoped that further strike action can be avoided provided the Governors take the necessary steps to ensure teachers have the support they need to manage pupil behaviour effectively".

Student protester sent down for 32 months

News just in: Edward Woollard, 18, has been given a thirty two month sentence for 'violent disorder' for his part in the student protest at Tory HQ last year where he dropped a fire extinguisher from the roof of the building, narrowly missing police and protesters alike.

It's a stiff sentence for a stupid act but he'll be unlikely to receive any sympathy from the press. Indeed I'm not going to defend his actions because they were criminally reckless and could have resulted in severe injury or death of a protester, police office or passer-by.

Sadly this does not herald a list of prosecutions against violent behaviour. We will not see those who put Alfie Meadows in hospital before the courts, nor those who put Ian Tomlinson in the morgue. This prosecution may well be the first of many against students though, many of whom will not have endangered lives or been violent in the way that Mr Woollard undoubtedly was.

Judge Geoffrey Rivlin QC said in his sentencing;

"It is deeply regrettable, indeed a shocking thing, for a court to have sentence a young man such as you to a substantial term of custody.

"But the courts have a duty to provide the community with such protection from violence as they can and this means sending out a very clear message to anyone minded to behave in this way that an offence of this seriousness will not be tolerated.

"It is my judgment, exceedingly fortunate that your action did not result in death or very serious injury either to a police officer or a fellow protester."

The judge praised Wollard's mother saying he was taking into account her "extraordinary and courageous conduct" in persuading him to give himself up. I'm not sure she will be thanking him for these words at what must be a heart rending time for her.

Woolard is paying the price for being a prat and we shouldn't try to minimise the harm he could have done. Indeed at the time other protesters instantly realised how reckless his actions were and began to chant up to those on the roof "Stop throwing shit", which they did.

However, we should also not allow the hypocrisy surrounding these events to go unmarked. Where Camilla's Stickgate seems to be in the news every day and those police officers who put Alfie Meadows in hospital go unremarked. Thankfully Meadows is recovering, but he was a victim of violence in a far more serious way than Prince Charles' consort, but somehow we are not all equal in the eyes of the great and the good.

My personal view is that this sentence seems comparatively high compared to others who have committed violent offences, but I'm more concerned that this does not herald the start of a series of convictions against those who did not endanger lives on these protests, whilst violent police officers appear to be immune from the law.

Simon Hughes continues to disappoint

Lib Dem MP and deputy leader Simon Hughes has been appointed 'access to higher education Tsar' by the Coalition government.

Hilarious. This follows hot on the heels of his supposedly principled abstention on a bill that he had pledged to oppose.

According to the BBC "During the six-month term, Mr Hughes will go into schools to canvass the concerns of less financially well-off teenagers and devise with them publicity campaigns to persuade as many as possible to consider higher education."

Well, that sounds ace doesn't it? Mr Hughes is going to "devise" a PR campaign. It's brilliant having people with a social conscience in the government isn't it?

In April I was saying nice things about the man, but his refusal to act on his personal pledge and this new role in spinning the government's plans turn those words to ashes in my mouth.

My only wish is that every time Hughes decides to "go into schools" every kid who's had their EMA taken away from them looks him in the eye and dares him to say that they are better off.

Education and inequality

Camden Green Natalie Bennett talks about education, inequality and why the students are right to protest.



I reckon I'm gradually getting better at this camera boy / editing business.

The Tuition Fees Consistency Awards

Simply out of interest I thought I'd compare and contrast those MPs who voted on the original Higher Education Bill that brought in Tuition Fees in 2004 and last week's vote on raising those fees. I wanted to find out which MPs were actually consistent on the issue.

The first list is easy. Of everyone who voted for tuition fees in 2004 not a single MP voted for the rise in 2010. There is not a single MP who has been a consistent advocate of the current policy on tuition fees.

The second list is made up of the Labour 2004 'rebels', the Lib Dem and Tory 2010 'rebels' as well as SNP/Plaid. This list does not contain abstainers only people who voted against tuition fees both times.

Ms Annette Brooke	Mid Dorset and North Poole	Ldem
Mr Menzies Campbell	North East Fife	Ldem
Mr Andrew George	St Ives	Ldem
Mr Mike Hancock	Portsmouth South	Ldem
Mr Charles Kennedy	Ross, Skye and Inverness West	Ldem
Mr John Pugh	Southport	Ldem
Mr Alan Reid	Argyll and Bute	Ldem
Mr Bob Russell	Colchester	Ldem
Mr Adrian Sanders	Torbay	Ldem
Mr Roger Williams	Brecon and Radnorshire	Ldem
Miss Diane Abbott	Hackney North and Stoke Newington	Labour.
Mr Martin Caton	Gower	Labour.
Mr Jeremy Corbyn	Islington North	Labour.
Mr David Crausby	Bolton North East	Labour.
Mr Jon Cruddas	Dagenham	Labour.
Mr John Cryer	Hornchurch	Labour.
Mr Ian Davidson	Glasgow Pollok	Labour.
Mr Jim Dobbin	Heywood and Middleton	Labour.
Mr Frank Dobson	Holborn and St Pancras	Labour.
Mr Paul Farrelly	Newcastle-under-Lyme	Labour.
Mr Paul Flynn	Newport West	Labour.
Mr Roger Godsiff	Birmingham, Sparkbrook and Small Heath	Labour.
Mr Dai Havard	Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney	Labour.
Ms Kate Hoey	Vauxhall	Labour.
Mr Kelvin Hopkins	Luton North	Labour.
Mr Eric Illsley	Barnsley Central	Labour.
Ms Glenda Jackson	Hampstead and Highgate	Labour.
Mr Tony Lloyd	Manchester Central	Labour.
Mr Ian Lucas	Wrexham	Labour.
Mr John McDonnell	Hayes and Harlington	Labour.
Mr Michael Meacher	Oldham West and Royton	Labour.
Mr George Mudie	Leeds East	Labour.
Mr Albert Owen	Ynys Môn	Labour.
Mr Dennis Skinner	Bolsover	Labour.
Mr Jon Trickett	Hemsworth	Labour.
Mr Elfyn Llwyd	Meirionnydd Nant Conwy	PC
Mr Hywel Williams	Caernarfon	PC
Mr Angus Robertson	Moray	SNP.
Mr Michael Weir	Angus	SNP.
Mr Pete Wishart	North Tayside	SNP.
David Davis	Haltemprice and Howden	Tory
Julian Lewis	New Forest East	Tory

That's ten Lib Dems, twenty four Labour, two Tories, two Plaid and three SNP MPs. Forty one MPs in total. Obviously this list excludes those MPs who weren't MPs in both 2004 and 2010. Well done all of them for being consistent on this issue.

I should point out there is not a logical inconsistency in voting for introducing fees and opposing tripling them, although some might argue that the first allowed the second. I think there is a problem though in voting against introducing them and then being in favour of their increase, as we have seen many Lib Dems and Tories do - but there are too many of them to bother listing.

Caroline Lucas on Fees

Yesterday Caroline Lucas MP made two sterling performances on tuition fees. First of all in the House was short and sweet. The constrained debate time and number of MPs wanting to speak makes it a stroke of luck she got to say anything at all.

"The hon. Gentleman rightly spoke about the importance of employers paying their contribution towards higher education. Does he therefore support the University and College Union's proposal for a business education tax that would essentially be a corporation tax on the 4% biggest companies that benefit directly from graduates? That would generate £3.9 billion for higher education and would mean that we could scrap tuition fees altogether."

Tax the richest to enable equal access to education? Seems reasonable to me, thanks to UCU for the plan. The second was a speech to the crowd outside where she got to speak for slightly longer and you can watch it here;



Good stuff. There's also some views on the all important EMA here.

Students: a right Royal stitch up

Another day of protest as Parliament briefly discussed and then voted on the increase in a package of proposals including increasing tuition fees.

Thank the heavens and all the sainted angels that Prince Charles and Camilla were not harmed when they were caught up in the action, the last thing we needed was for the crowd to pull the royals from their car, execute them with a makeshift guillotine and then dance in their still warm blood. So we can breath a sigh of relief, although one reporter was mocked. Shameful.

My favourite placards I saw today were "Dave: repeating the least funny things from the eighties", "Cameron, don't run with scissors", "Clegg, this is no time for your nonsense" and "Some cuts can be good" accompanied by a picture of the Tory tree logo being chainsawed down.

Everything I saw was pretty calm, although the police were out in force and even small side streets seemed to have a significant police presence round Westminster. From twitter it sounds like the protests got pretty hairy at points, but I must have been in the 'old man in sensible jumper section' and didn't get coshed or harried by the cavalry like some did today.

The vote was carried 323 votes to 302 with 25 abstentions.

Ironically this is a larger majority than the vote in 2004 when Labour initially introduced tuition fees on a majority of just five (71 Labour MPs voted against the government at the time, as did the Tories and Lib Dems).

Mind you with 'riots' on the streets, royals menaced and a key government vote won by just 21 votes I have to say... the honeymoon period didn't last long did it? They were only elected in May and by December you've got yobs swinging from flags on the cenotaph. Keeps you fit and warm if nothing else.

Peter lists the 28 of 57 Lib Dems who voted to treble tuition fees and against their party policy. If these MPs had voted with their pre-election pledges then the measures would not have passed, but they have wheels to grease and poles to slither up so it's not to be. 21 Lib Dems were good to their word and voted against and 8 Lib Dems abstained, two of whom were in Cancun (who ironically would have voted yes and no cancelling each other out anyway).

One Lib Dem who abstained was Simon Hughes. I find it utterly bizarre that people are now claiming this shows how principled he is. Oh, hold on, no, it *does* show how principled he is... not very. He signed a pledge to oppose but once he was elected wasn't too worried about having to follow through. Abstention is just as much a broken pledge as voting for in my opinion.

Six Tories voted against. They were David Davis, Julian Lewis, Andrew Percy, Jason McCartney, Philip Davies and Mark Reckless. Well done chaps, but am I right in thinking these are all Tories who oppose being in Coalition with the Lib Dems?

I don't think any Labour MP voted with the government, they know which side their bread is buttered, so it shows where the battles lines are drawn up. Tories on one side, Labour, Greens, Plaid et al on the other and the Lib Dems running from one side to other with confused looks on their faces as they wet themselves.

Clegg on fees

If it wasn't for those damn pesky kids the Lib Dems would have got away with it too...

Round-up: Students getting hotter

In London I managed to follow the smoke signals towards the protests outside Downing Street and find several thousand students and police blockading the way. Lots of police horses and demonstrators who ranged from school age to uni age and then there was a big jump with a handful of old politicos, like me, seeing what we could learn.

The police had kettled quite a few protesters when I'd arrived. I don't know what they were burning in there but it smelt pretty acrid - glad I wasn't cooped up with that bonfire. They're saying on Whitehall they could be kettled until midnight - and it's freezing! I don't envy those poor kids.

Much of the anger seems to be around the EMA, or Education Maintenance Allowance, rather than the fees hike, which is presumably why we saw so many school kids in uniform (eg here) sometimes accompanied by teachers. I don't know who was escorting who.

BBC has some calming footage from round the country, and the Guardian was following the event ('live blogging, wooo). Anti-Cuts has followed many of the protests today, and you can see my favourite placard of the day here, from Edinburgh where they don't even have fees.

Written reports: Birmingham (pics), Brighton (plus), Bristol, Cambridge (also, statement), Cardiff (tweets, blog), Durham, Edinburgh, Lancaster, Leeds (pic) (also), Liverpool, Newcastle (blog), Nottingham, Manchester (blog), Oxford (plus, pics, blog), Plymouth, Roehampton, Royal Holloway (blog), Sheffield, SOAS, Southampton, Southbank (also), Stroud, Tottenham rally, UCL, ULU, Warwick uni (pic).

Video reports: Cambridge, Hastings, Manchester, SOAS, Southbank, Sheffield, Westminster Kingsway, The University of Strategic Optimism (Llyods TSB London), Whitehall as they move the kettle, London being young and jolly.

I was also enjoying twitter where I found out that there were chants "Your Jobs Are Next!" at police. However, what's interesting is that twitter seem to have been censoring the protest tag to stop it 'trending' (ie being seen by everyone in the country) and here are the stats to prove it.

Advise: The Activist Legal Project has a good set of direct action guides which are also fun to read.

Late entries one: Really Open University, Next day of action Nov. 30th, Met Police information, Indymedia thread, French solidarity demo, Socialist Workers' reports, Bright Green picture round-up

I'll add more when people tell me about them / I spot them. Email me or leave a comment if you want your stuff included and I've missed it here.

Late entries two: Mark Steel on Gove's guide to social class. NUS official response, sorry about this but the Daily Mail has some nice pics, particularly if you lke smashed up police vans.

Late entries three: Adam Ramsay on whether the protests worked, Doc Richard on preparing to be kettled, Molly was protesting in Cardiff, Simon in Newcastle, as was Mark, Journeyman's daughter led a student walkout, Alisdair has more photos from Edinburgh, PR reports from John Roan school - where-ever that is.

Late entries four: Edinburgh uni against the cuts, useful discussion of whether the police van was a 'plant', video of anarchist whacking protester at said van, Jonathon Warren has some top notch photos.

Late entries five: Indymedia - prepare to be clubbed on the head, one police view, do read the comments, Coalition of Resistance pics. The South Yorkshire Star, Clegg forced off his bike, Brighton university still occupied, BBC runs 'your pictures', The Great Wen looks at how the kids have always been vilified.

The Telegraph photography blog describes how difficult it is to take a good pic of people smashing up a van when so many of your colleagues surround the vehicle, and they post their results. Herald Scotland sums up protests north of the border, The Liverpool Daily Post says protesters went too far because someone threw an egg.

Last lot?: Infinite thought, New Internationalist, more on Oxford, new from the Guardian, BBC on continuing occupations, police chief predicts disorder, Cambridge student punched by cop, Ben Duncan reports from Brighton. Communist Students in Manchester.

Students: they've all done very well

If you're not already following the twitter hashtag for demo2010, and Lord bless those not in the grips of twitter, then I'd like to recommend it. It's a moment by moment update of events happening up and down the country from students protesting the government's education policies.

It probably comes as a surprise but students can actually speak for themselves and articulate what they're protesting about without the BBC or Guardian having to speak for them.

Today's actions are extremely impressive with occupations, marches and lobbies seemingly in every town and city across the country - maybe even Bishop's Stortford... no, no, that would be asking too much of the sleepy market town (prove me wrong Stortfordians!).

I know in Cambridge and Hackney the protests have seen school kids, in uniform, with their teachers!

It's early in the day and I'm not the person to ask about what's going on - but hopefully I'll round up some of the events later today. Feel free to forward suggestions of blog posts and comment from students if you spot them, or write them.

Photo credit to Adam Ramsay.

My last student post - honest

The press agenda around the student protests on Wednesday was pretty clear. Even the so called liberal press decided to characterise the protests as riots which is a deliberate exaggeration and one we should not go along with.

The media love to sex up a story and dry reports about the proposals that led to the protests are nowhere near as interesting as a marauding horde. For example, all the press went with the 'perfect' photo of a masked hooligan breaking a window with a well placed fire just to the side.

Of course if the picture is taken from a different angle it tells a rather different story. Namely that the window smasher is clearly on his own surrounded by a mob of photographers and behind them... a line of police who watch with a piquant sense of curiosity as this one man riot goes to town.


Likewise with the thrown/dropped fire extinguisher. This idiotic and reckless act on the part of one of the anarchists on the roof of the Tory HQ has been labeled attempted murder and turned a rooftop protest that was pretty harmless into some kind of terrifying airborne assault on our boys in blue.

Yet on the whole the press failed to report that when the fire extinguisher was thrown from the roof the entire crowd below started chanting "stop throwing shit" and the rooftop brigade did. The protest showed it was completely opposed to that sort of moronic behavior just as, I'm sure, most of those reading this will be. More importantly it shows how movements can lead themselves and can actually stop people getting out of hand.

If a policeman had been hurt of killed by this action it would have been a disaster not just for the policeman concerned and their family but also for the movement against the cuts who would have been destroyed by it. That's one of many good reasons to be in favour of non-violent direct action.

However the actions of one or two individuals have been allowed to overshadow the actions of thousands who marched on Tory Party HQ and the tens of thousands more who marched on the day. Blurring the line between violence against persons and political vandalism is something I think we should resist. Compare and contrast the way the press branded the demo with this video which shows the far more positive side of the day.

However, when you're part of a movement you don't get to dictate to everyone in that movement how they behave, you can only put arguments and promote your vision while moving forwards together. The move to say that the Millbank demo was 'tiny' or that they weren't students have been shown to be false with estimates ranging from 2 - 5,000 at Millbank and all of those arrested were students, ten of them children. These were real protesters who share our anger - that has to be our starting point.

I think Adam's piece on a diversity of tactics is spot on and we have to understand the anger - particularly at the Lib Dems - and help articulate the economic alternatives to cuts. It's understandable that there are student voices that want to target the Lib Dems. I think the national day of action scheduled for Wednesday, November 24, at 11:00am which is promoting local direct actions in schools and universities across the country is really important.

You can read more about it in the Guardian, on ITV and read the anti-cuts pdf. I hope it goes well, both confident and peaceful and makes its point felt in as clear a way as possible.

It's also worth reading the pieces in the New Internationalist and on Open Democracy who try to place this developing movement in a wider context.

The key thing, for me, is how students build the momentum from this demonstration and getting bogged down in condemning some stupid acts seems simply misplaced when the government attacks are actually upon us.

The years ahead are going see a lot of hurt, a lot of protests and occasionally we're going to see things we don't like. My concern at the panic some people felt at the Millbank protest is about what this bodes for the future when, perhaps, there really will be riots.

The Risque Joy of Students

There seems to be a move in the media and some sections of the political classes to say those who occupied the Tory HQ yesterday were not 'real' protesters. I have to say they looked pretty real to me. I think what they mean is that they don't agree with their methods, but choose to express this in such a way that delegitimises those they disagree with rather than engaging with their argument.

It's also palpably false.

I thought the Young Greens statement on the protests was spot on. We should not define a whole protest 'violent' because of one broken window and an inappropriate fire extinguisher. It is not uncomplicated to say that damage to property is violence, although when the Tories destroyed the mining industry, for instance, it did involve a fair amount of state violence to achieve that.


Some people. who can crop up in the most unexpected places, dismiss the couple of thousand protesters outside Millbank as rent-a-Trots but it's simply not so. By the way how much is it to hire a Trot and do they charge by the hour, or is it more sort of piece work?

There is a growing student movement that's becoming more confident and ready to act and we should, I think, support that without insisting that everyone goes about things our way, not that I'm sure we have a single way.

It's perfectly legitimate to have differences of opinion or doubts, or to get frightened on a demo, as this excellent post illustrates. However as Jamie outlines here the student train is leaving and we ought to wave them off with a smile not allow side issues to derail that support. The coming years are going to be tough, and evidently some of us are going to have to harden up otherwise they'll be very inconsistent friends.

Students are right to be angry. Students are right to protest. If anything we need more energy, not less, in these movements to help them show the rest of us the way. For the first time in ages I'm feeling hopeful, and for that I'd like to thank those students who took things up a notch.

Student Revolt

If there's a lesson in life we should all learn is that students must never break windows unless they're members of the Bullingdon Club. You see, you get a better class of vandalism at Oxford, for example not a single student at today's protest was sporting top hat and tails, nor was any on horseback - pathetic.

There's a number of excellent reports from today's demonstration from Adam Ramsay, Sofie, Jamie Potter, Whirled Peas, Political Dynamite, Nina Power and Red Pepper are among them.

The day before John Harris told students to avoid anyone 'leery' and the BBC reinforced this on the day although the video is lovely. It seems that the story is now going to be students smash some glass rather than government smash education, but that's a decision they choose to take.

Many students who attended the demonstration today, where students occupied Tory Party HQ, have been puzzled at how little the reports of the day in the press resemble their experiences. I really don't think it's the job of the media to condemn the protests - surely that's the NUS's job.

It seems particularly bizarre to see students condemned for a broken window by the same people who justify the deaths of hundreds of thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan. It seems to me that some people in British politics have got things all out of proportion.

Current reports say that there were 35 arrests and the police say they're very embarrassed at how they handled the situation claiming they were taken by surprise by the students. You've got to get out of bed pretty early to get one over on students... possibly.

I suspect and hope that this will be the first of a growing wave of increasingly militant demonstrations, occupations and actions against the cuts. Blair taught us that if you just march the government will ignore you and the Lib Dems taught us that you can't change policy by voting for change - all their pledges have turned to dust. So it looks like we need to turn it up a notch. Well done everyone.

CSR special: Ring-fencing NHS, schools and aid

There are a number of departments that the government has protected from themselves (which is obviously very merciful). To much headlines the NHS, schools and DfID are all areas where the Comprehensive Spending Review has not bitten... or did it?

The NHS budget is protected with an extra ten billion over the next four years, the schools budget retained and to much trumpeting aid is, in fact, increasing. However, this is not the whole story.

Many health campaigners are understandably confused at the way the coalition say the NHS is safe in their hands but they still seem force to fight to retain services and fight privatisation. roughly one in five trusts admit that they have closed down a major service or department in the last few months. The privatisation is ongoing Tory/Labour policy but why should services be closing down if the money's protected?

The answer is three fold. First of all the overall budget is ring-fenced, not individual services and the rise (of 2.5%) is actually less than the increase needed to preserve services. That means if the money is moved into one area it inevitably has to move away from another. The government is very keen on an extraordinary overhaul of the structures of the health services which, in itself will cost money that would have been spent on other services, leaving aside whether that reorganisation would be a good idea.

Secondly the capital expenditure is being reduced by 17% and there are twenty billion pounds worth of 'efficiency savings' already in the pipeline.

Thirdly, the increasing cost of drugs in particular (as well as additional strain of obesity and an aging population) mean that certain areas of spending are eating up more than their fair share of the cake.

Public sector union UNISON was very clear on how the ring-fencing will still mean cuts when they said that; "Patients and staff will soon see through the facade that the NHS is being ring-fenced, when at the same time it has been told to make £20bn worth of savings.

“The NHS is not safe. Some hospitals are already cutting back on vital life-improving operations such as cataract, hip and knee replacements. The NHS needs extra funding just to stand still. It will not be able to keep up with the demands of a growing elderly population and the cost of increasingly expensive treatments and drugs.

“The Government’s latest NHS “reforms” will intensify the market and introduce more private sector provision. They will cost £3bn to implement and create havoc and instability just when the NHS can least afford it.

“Staff are facing a two year pay freeze, many vacancies are being left unfilled, pensions are under review and the number of managers will be cut by 45%. Another Tory broken promise – the NHS is under siege – it is not being protected."

So what about schools?

Well, this is slightly different. Back to UNISON; “The coalition is being dishonest by saying that the schools budget will be boosted. Schools also get vital funding and support services from local authorities, which are being hit by drastic cuts. Many will struggle to afford to help schools support children with special needs, or run truancy units. Schools will have to dip into their own funds to pay for these essential services.

“Up and down the country schools support staff are facing losing their jobs. It all adds up to mean cuts will disproportionately hit on children with additional needs in schools.”

Essentially the 'schools budget' makes up only a portion of the total moneys that schools receive which is why specialist services, like one to one tuition are under threat. Local authorities, as we have already seen, are under a huge amount of financial pressure and it would unbelievable if their contribution to schools did not suffer.

Oh, and then there's the lost funding of the Building Schools for the Future programme which lost billions in investment for schools in dire need of refurbishment. In fact, after the fiasco of the handling of BSF scrapping (which turned out to be a hell of a lot more popular than Gove expected) it's arguable that it would have been impossible to take more out of schools than they already have.

Aid

Now, surely I should be overjoyed to hear the news that there will be a significant increase in the aid budget? 37% over four years looks pretty good, especially in the context of the cuts. Well, let's take a closer look first.

Tucked away in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office cuts it turns out that a number of their projects will now be delivered by DfID, how many and how much they will cost is left unanswered as yet. More importantly while the FCO is to "increase its focus on championing British companies to win export" they also account for a good portion of the increase in Official Development Assistance (ODA).

After all while other, much more useful, quangos went to the wall the Export Credit Guarantee Department who love the shady world of arms exports, etc, and all that entails.

I'm intrigued as to whether there will be any slippage between meeting the Millennium Development Goals and maintaining British financial interests. I should point out I'm not being artful here, it genuinely unclear so far - however - Section 2.97 in the Review states "British international development policy [to be] more focused on boosting economic growth and wealth creation".

Continuing my concern that the aid budget may be being used with an eye to British interests is that 2.97 continues that 30% of the ODA is to be used in conflict countries "with particular focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan". I'm really sorry to be cynical and I'm not down playing the fact that these two countries desperately need aid but for the British State to focus on areas where British troops are in conflict with the locals is not a coincidence.

Anyway, while an increase in the aid budget is always welcome we should ensure that aid should be used as aid not as an adjunct to business interests or the military effort.

While we're talking about DfID it's to be welcomed that a *new* quango overseeing how the money is to be spent has been set up however I'm concerned by the idea that DfID is to be a "leaner organisation with a focus on managing aid efficiently and effectively, by seriously reducing back office costs." Sorry to be picky but cutting admin costs does not automatically make you more efficient and effective.

Indeed DfId had already been streamlined under Labour and this had resulted in severe restrictions in the number of projects they could manage. The consequences of this is that aid will tend to be delivered either by the very biggest NGOs or consortiums of large NGOs.

Smaller international development organisations (of which there are many) already find it extremely difficult to work directly with DfID because they simply do not have the capacity to work with the small fry. The Coalition's proposals will simply deepen this trend driving small specialist NGOs out of business while heaping money on their super-sized cousins.

All in all what I'm trying to say is that it is not surprising that the Coalition have tried to win as many good headlines as they can amid the carnage - but ring-fencing services does not, in this case, mean that the future of those services are secure.

Different approaches to the cuts

I'm not sure which approach I prefer from our public bodies. You have the special pleading which generally runs along the lines of 'cut *their library* not ours', which is something you'll always come across when you're part of a movement to defend public services. However, often official bodies have to come up with their own unique relationship with the government.

Take education. Ofsted this week helpfully told the government that most of the special needs teaching going on is completely unnecessary. How convenient. How craven. They might as well have said if you're going to cut the education budget take out on the thickos and the poor first.

Of course, their actual line was that you wouldn't need as much special needs provision if the quality of the education system as a whole was better. Seeing as that isn't on the cards though the effect of their position will be that cuts are directed towards the most vulnerable, the most in need of specialist provision.

The police though have taken a different line. One of the country's top police officers, Derek Barnett, has told the government that, because their policies will cause massive unrest it would be foolhardy to cut the police budget just when they are about to need a wall of shields and truncheons to protect them.

He may have a point. When Thatcher came to power in '79 she was very careful to make sure the police were happy and well equipped. After all she knew she was going to be calling on them to fight her political battles for her. It's only after she'd finished with her little wars that she finally started to stop featherbedding the cops, much to their horror. Perhaps Clegg and Cameron need to think about how much they'll need the police in the coming years before they cut the budget.

Just to prove the point, a planned trade union demonstration outside the Lib Dem conference has been banned. See Clegg, the boys in blue have saved you from hearing any nasty people who disagree with you. How damn liberal of them - I wonder how many of the civil liberties Lib Dems will be kicking up a stink about this at conference?

At the end of the day we're being given a whole load of unacceptable choices, perhaps it might be all to the good if the thin blue line was a little bit thinner in the years ahead. It might make the fight for a saner economic policy a little bit less painful.

Drugs education

I don't know why but I just assumed drugs education would be better now than in 'my day' when it was a series of obvious lies interweaved with a smattering of moral panics and worst case scenario hyperbole. It looks like I might have been wrong.

I've just taken a look at 'ask frank' the government sponsored drugs awareness campaign that is supposed to help young people understand drugs without any of the scare stories or moralistic bullshit that characterised the campaigns in the past. When it was set up the idea was that it would be 'frank' about the fact that people take drugs because they enjoy them and, because they were truthful about that they'd also be able to raise awareness of the risks associated with drug taking.

Here's what they say taking cannabis is like;



I'm not impressed by this one little bit I'm afraid. Literally millions of people in this country smoke cannabis, even if just occasionally. This is not their experience. Anyone who has encountered the drug will know immediately that this video is a ridiculous caricature that sets out to scare people away from drugs rather than inform us about them.

Does this matter? I think so, yes.

Despite my hippy liberal leanings I'm not a great fan of most illegal drugs and don't take any myself. I do want people to be able to make informed choices about what they are doing to their bodies. The moment a government 'information' film goes out of its way to talk utter bollocks to further a different agenda it means that any meaningful or useful information they might also have to tell us is immediately tainted.

If you meet someone who's been smoking dope and they aren't the giggling, forgetful clown munching their way through the larder this film tells you about you understand you've been lied to. Then you meet more smokers and none of them are having panic attacks or behaving like a dancing buffoon and you think; "Actually this stuff is fine. They just don't like people having fun."

It seems to me that the government has two choices. It can tell the truth about drugs, informing the electorate of the benefits and risks of their behaviour in a measured and truthful way - or they can run a down the line anti-drugs campaign that involves ignoring the evidence and telling lies. Only one of these options is in the best interests of the people, and it isn't Frank.

Academics to become immigration snoops?

There's an excellent letter in the Guardian today on the latest government wheeze to get lecturers to monitor their students. Signed by 37 academics it reads;

As academics involved in research on the uses and abuses of state power, it is becoming increasingly apparent that members of staff in universities and colleges are being drawn into a role of policing immigration (Universities weigh up new fraud unit to thwart bogus applications, 11 April). For example, academic and administrative staff are being asked to monitor the attendance of students at lectures and classes (whether compulsory or not), and we are being asked to check the ID of students and colleagues, while external examiners and visiting lecturers are also now being asked to provide passport details.

We strongly oppose the imposition of such changes in the way that academic institutions are run. We believe these practices are discriminatory and distort academic freedoms. The implementation of UK immigration policies is not part of our contractual duties and we will play no part in practices which discriminate against students and staff in this way. We support our administrative colleagues in their refusal to engage in such practices. Thus we pledge to refuse to co-operate with university requests for us to provide details on our students or participate in investigations of those students.

As a first, and highly practical, step, we pledge not to supply any personal details - such as passport or driving licence details - in our role as external examiners, and urge all of our colleagues across higher and further education to join this boycott. We will also forward motions to our respective union branches in support of this position. A boycott would undermine immediately the system of external examining at all levels, which operates almost exclusively on the basis of goodwill, and thus strike a significant blow against both the pernicious drift of government policy, and university managements' acquiescence to this.

The "terrorist threat" is the stated reason for this crack down although it seems to me that it would do precious little to prevent attacks but rather simply serve to make the education system an arm of the immigration service. That's not what it's for and, unless we actually want a police state where everyone is snooping on everyone else, I don't think it's a direction we should be taking.

If we got an official to punch every student from Pakistan in this country we might well hit some terrorist sympathisers, but to what purpose? We could guarantee that we would increase the pool of discontent that such people feed upon, but little else.

Likewise, if we clamp down on student visas it is quite possible that we may temporarily prevent a terrorist entering the country and force them to get in in a different way, an inconvenience for sure - at the cost of unjustly denying a whole load of completely innocent people entry, making our education system and our country all the poorer (both culturally and financially).

Part of the problem is the rank dishonesty of a government that uses every news story (in this case one they generated themselves) to further their already existing agenda no matter what relation that story might actually have to their goals. When they get away with it it is because we let them, not because it's a clever strategy because it isn't. It's a blunt tool, but a powerful one.

Almost always the government finds itself using fear as a lever to crack down on someone or other. Today it's students from Pakistan, tomorrow it will be travellers or trade unionists or political protesters. Or maybe that's today as well.

Scrapping tests

Good news. Tests for fourteen year olds (Key Stage 3) have been scrapped. Whilst we're unlikely to see the end of testing completely any time soon the elimination of these high profile tests could see a lot of the artificial pressure taken off of both kids and teachers who can feel like they're on an exam production line rather than exploring the exciting process of learning.

The heavy handed centralisation that has dominated the education system is, I suspect, one of the major contributors to the demoralisation of the teaching profession. You take intelligent, community minded individuals with a keen interest in their topic and put them on a tread mill, forcing them to speak about the subjects they love in a specific, governmentally determined way and gear it all up to regurgitation in a test environment - that's got to be disheartening.

I don't see how this plays to people's strengths, bringing out their best qualities. If we want quality teachers we need to allow them to shine rather than simply treat them like robots.

However, good news that it is, it's not the principle of testing that's been rejected. The move seems to be due to the monumental cock up the private companies managed to make of marking these tests, causing much distress up and down the country back in July. This hasn't made them rethink the policy of farming everything out to the private sector, nuh-ha, they've simply abandoned Key Stage 3. Oh well, we mustn't grumble.

The teachers unions are more than happy about it. Christine Blower, acting general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said "Ed Balls' announcement is an admission that the current testing system has failed. For too long, English, Mathematics and Science teachers in secondary schools have found themselves skewing everything to enable their pupils to jump through a series of unnecessary hoops."

This means children in the UK will now only be subjected to national testing at 5, 7, 11 and then 16, a schedule completely integrated into the league table system. Personally I think if they stopped spending the money on regimenting schools and teachers, opened things up for a bit of local autonomy and shared out the cash in a "do what you think best" fund we'd see happier schools and a better education system. Maybe that's just me.

Marxist reading

Tim asks, in respect of the SWP discussion (below), "I've also long felt that I've missed out terribly by not having been through the sort of skills training and political education that you mention. (If you want to do your bit to help remedy this, Jim, you could help by naming the ten books which have been most important in forming your political outlook. How about a post on that?)"

Well, I'll give it a try with the caveat that it's not the books you read that provide the main part of your political education. For instance I'd been in the SWP for about two weeks when I was asked to do a talk on Lenin. I remember saying to the dear departed Pete Leech "But I don't know anything about Lenin." His response was "You've got a week, read some books." And because I didn't know that was ridiculous that's exactly what I did - to good effect.

That process of having to explain ideas constantly was far more effective at ingraining living political ideas into me than the more passive process of reading - particularly because you get to disagree and search for the right path collectively. Then you get arrested together to cement those ideological bonds.

Anyway, in roughly the order I read them here is my list of my ten most influential socialist books, may God have mercy on my soul;

1. Tony Cliff's Lenin Vol I "Building the Party"
   Really useful in understanding how a political party needs to be ready to change its shape to fit new situations. It's also good at describing how a party is necessarily made up of different sections which all have different interests and behaviours, and structural shifts are often about shifts in emphasis between these parts.
   
   
2. Callinicos "The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx"
   Whatever other faults Alex Callinicos may have there is no question that this is the finest explanation of the Marxist method there is. And I've read alot.
   
   
3. Marx and Engels "The Communist Manifesto"
   One of those books I delayed reading for a long time and then swept through in one go once I'd started. The poetry and fire of the Communist Manifesto is rarely matched in political works.
   
   
4. Trotsky "Problems of Everyday life"
   Actually a collection of Trotsky's post-revolution writings, this book demonstrates how politics isn't just grand schemes for changing the world, but about how we all live our everyday lives. It also has a great article on why politeness is political.
   
   
5. Engels "Socialism Utopian and Scientific"
   This short book outsold the Communist Manifesto for decades in the nineteenth century and once you read it you can see why. Once Engels is freed from Marx's rather drier style you have a deep, angry and very readable exposition on the need for a fundamental transformation of society.
   
   
6. Badayev "Bolsheviks in the Tsarist Duma"
   Badayev is not a household name, not even in households populated only by Marxists, but this work by one of the Bolsheviks in pre-revolutionary Russia who was elected to their version of Parliament is an inspirational read on how they organised under semi-legal conditions and used respectable structures as one arm of their revolutionary activity.
   
   
7. Rees "Algebra of Revolution" which is a great companion to Bukharin's "ABC of Communism"
   John Rees is a dude and this is surely his magnum opus. Nobody does the dialectic for a modern audience better than this. Engaging, if complex at times, this was a very useful work for getting to grips with the philosophical underpinnings of Marxism.
   
   
8. Marx "Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844"
   This was a difficult book to read. But in terms of "filling out" an understanding of revolutionary thought it's completely invaluable.
   
   
9. Lukacs "History and Class Consciousness"
   But there are few useful books harder to read than this one. I think I read it three times before I began to understand what on Earth it was all about. Parts of it are easier than others, but once you come to grips with it and start understanding what he's saying you can start disagreeing with some of the most important concepts in Marxism.
   
   
10. ISJ until a couple of years.
    This one's a cheat really but the International Socialism Journal - which was, and still is, the SWP's theoretical journal was very handy indeed. Unfortunately once John Rees stopped editing it it became a lot more superficial and I generally wouldn't bother with it these days.
    

Jesus that looks like a dry list doesn't it? I can assure you most of it isn't, apart from Lucaks who is a very tough read and I wouldn't recommend him until you've familiarised yourself with other works first.

It's also an odd list because although I can still feel these books' influence on me this doesn't explain my politics at all. Although I would and do describe myself as a socialist I find the term Marxist completely meaningless, and certainly the idea of a Leninist Party seems so completely unhelpful in the modern context that I discount it altogether.

Mind you, I wouldn't have a clue where to start if I was to try to develop a similar list for Green ideas, I usually read the news and rather dry policy documents for that sort of thing. Perhaps people can suggest some?

Update: Matt Selwood has posted on this theme, as has Scott Redding, Adrian Windisch, Peter Sanderson, Weggis and Flesh is grass any other takers?

The Tactics of Boycotting Israel

I've been thinking about the boycott of Israel a bit recently and, as UCU are discussing it today, I thought I might as well bring it up. I'm particularly interested in whether *tactically* a boycott is the most effective form of solidarity we can provide to those at the sharp end of Israel's policies.

I say UCU are discussing it, in fact they have a proposal where "colleagues [should] be asked to consider the moral and political implications of educational links with Israeli institutions" which is a long way from the idiotic caricature that Melanie Phillips puts forward in The Spectator.

She says "Today, the Universities and Colleges Union is discussing whether universities should single out Israeli and Jewish scholars for active discrimination... What makes it all the more appalling is that it is Israelis and Jews alone who are being singled out for this treatment." But of course Jews aren't being singled out for anything, a completely dishonest and stupid response - let's look at the actual motion shall we? Then we can judge for ourselves how accurate Melanie's "journalism" is.

25 - Composite: Palestine and the occupation University of Brighton - Eastbourne, University of Brighton - Grand Parade, University of East London Docklands, National Executive Committee

Congress notes the

1. continuation of illegal settlement, killing of civilians and the impossibility of civil life, including education

2. humanitarian catastrophe imposed on Gaza by Israel and the EU

3. apparent complicity of most of the Israeli academy

4. legal attempts to prevent UCU debating boycott of Israeli academic institutions; and legal advice that such debates are lawful

Congress affirms that

5. criticism of Israel or Israeli policy are not, as such, anti-semitic;

6. pursuit and dissemination of knowledge are not uniquely immune from their moral and political consequences;

Congress resolves that

7. colleagues be asked to consider the moral and political implications of educational links with Israeli institutions, and to discuss the occupation with individuals and institutions concerned, including Israeli colleagues with whom they are collaborating;

8. UCU widely disseminate the personal testimonies of UCU and PFUUPE delegations to Palestine and the UK, respectively;

9. the testimonies will be used to promote a wide discussion by colleagues of the appropriateness of continued educational links with Israeli academic institutions;

10. UCU facilitate and encourage twinning arrangements and other direct solidarity with Palestinian institutions;

11. Ariel College, an explicitly colonising institution in the West Bank, be investigated under the formal Greylisting Procedure.

25A.1 University College London (amendment)

1. Delete point 3.
2. Point 8: After respectively; Add 'and statements from Israeli academics and British academics who have links with Israel'
3. Point 9: After appropriateness. delete 'of' and add 'for and against'.
4. Add a new final point 12 (will become 11 if 3 is deleted):
'No decision on cutting educational links with Israeli academic institutions will be made without a ballot of all members.'

25A.2 Compositing amendment University of Brighton Eastbourne, University of East London Docklands

Point 3, delete 'apparent'

25A.3 Compositing amendment University of Brighton - Eastbourne

Add new point 6: 'a boycott of all Israeli academic institutions at this time is unlikely to maximize and unify international solidarity.'

25A.4 Compositing amendment University of East London Docklands

Delete point 11, replace with 'Ariel College and similar institutions in the Occupied Territories are illegal, and will be investigated under UCU's Greylisting Procedure'

Now to me the initial motion looks pretty strong - but it also falls well short of a blanket boycott in that it allows for nuance and thoughtful engagement - which is the kind of thing I like. Now in UCU this is a very divisive issue, and to be honest if I was a UCU member I'd be pissed off that conference had to deal with the same issue time and again, but that's by the by and is meant as no slight to the importance of the issues.

To an extent this careful wording is a compromise due to the extreme level of heated wrangling within the teachers' union, but it also seems to be an improvement that does not cut off the ability to engage with progressive Israeli's and the peace movement. In fact it actively encourages it stating that colleagues should "discuss the occupation with individuals and institutions concerned, including Israeli colleagues with whom they are collaborating".

Obviously characters like Melanie Phillips make me want to sign up to Hamas, but in my usual, more rational, state I'm looking for the best way to support those who suffer at the hands of the Israeli government whilst going beyond the kind of black and white, pro- and anti- position that seems to be the common fare of this debate. I think asking people to consider "moral and political questions" is as good a starting point as any.