The Old Gaffer

Whether you accept what I wrote yesterday or not, you must accept that while changing the function of any one Department of our system is going to cause an upheaval and confusion due to the change, for the professionals working in it, the general public who will be using the Department, and also initially, with hours of study for those involved in the change, and a high level of people involved in the change. Now multiply this by the number of departments that Brown is or will be proposing to change, and I doubt if there are sufficient civil servants and Parliamentary time to accomplish it. I have always objected, as you will have read, to the presence of unelected spin-doctors having such a strong input to Parliamentary policy. In any walk of life, if you are employed as an adviser, you need to sustain the dependence of your employer upon you, or you will be out of a job. Apply this theory to spin-doctors and it is then apparent that they have to keep coming up with new ideas on a regular basis. I suspect that this sweeping change policy, is a case in point.

Take targets, I have never understood how you can provide a target in a regime such as education, when the conditions of the place of work, the environment and the social status of that area, can be so disparate from another. Take a rundown area of London, where there is poverty, a considerable amount of mixed races, and all that that implies, but given the same targets as Milton Keens. It is illogical. Continuing with the example of education, if you remove targets, then the only way you can monitor the educational success of the school is by exam results, and it appears that under these sweeping changes we will be doing away with that yardstick. It is not a secret that schoolteachers have a preferences among the pupils that they teach, so how can you have an assessment system that is fair? Targets, in my view, are government tools for persuading the electorate that they are doing a good job. The fact that it and other demands force written returns is highly wasteful of the time of the staff, and the frustration that this accords, is detrimental to the efficiency of the system. In all of life pragmatism should be the first principle.

To prove my point, I quote my experiences as an instructor in radar maintenance in the Royal Navy during the war. It was an eye-opener to me. We were training young men in their teens and early 20s the skills of repairing delicate highly complicated, electronic units, which were totally new in concept. These young men would be sent to sea, entrusted with the maintenance of these items, totally alone as no one else on the ship would understand the work, they would make their own decisions without reference, except to a book or their class notes, yet the success and safety of the ship, depended on them. We had a unique system of examination. The pupil was allowed to carry any written material he chose into the examination room and refer to it, without talking. The exams in this case gave the condition that these young men were to face once they were at sea, to find a solution to a problem, solely from the information they had and the knowledge that they had obtained. We guessed who would come out top. In marking these men, and using the one who’s work was best, we gave him about 95%, and graded everyone else according. That is pragmatism. It is not necessarily applicable in many cases, but that doesn’t stop an element of pragmatism being used when setting exams and marking them.

The government, through its civil servants, has a totally different basis upon which to manage the various aspects of our lives. Few, I believe, have had experience in the world of commerce, education or medicine etc, with the result that there is little pragmatism, but rather an academic emphasis by those operating the systems. I believe that the control is better left at a local level, such as a county council, where there is the possibility of serious interaction between the professionals and the controllers, and where pragmatism can be implemented, will cost much less, and take into account local conditions, not, on the basis of memos from somewhere anything up to 400 miles away

Today I heard of a new initiative by the government entitled Building Britain’s Future. Earlier in the week it was reported that the government was proposing to change the way in which the National strategies in literacy and numeracy would work. Today it was also revealed that the NHS is going to be revamped with respect to cancer treatment, and a closer association with the private sector. It is clear that this is a venture to try and improve the image of Gordon Brown, but at what cost?

What is interesting is that an education White Paper of this type was prepared but rejected by the education minister, Mr balls, only to be resurrected now. I have said recently, and often that change is very expensive in materials, valuable history and labour, and I am firmly convince that continuing to have central government responsible for all services, except the most menial, is only a stumbling block to good management and a serious case of duplication. Just as a mental exercise I thought I would try and see just what the process of changing the primary school strategies might involve. I don’t propose to do things in great detail and will be using round figures and approximations to arrive at some sort of total picture.

Suppose, for this exercise, we take the population of England as 50 million, a lifespan of 75 years, and that the number of children and adults in each year is the same. Therefore the children affected will be those from four years old until 11, a matter of seven years, the number of children in each year will be 600, 000, so the number of children affected by this will be 4 million, and at 40 children to each class, the number of classes affected will therefore be 100,000, or 14,000 schools. Initially they will have to be cross-party meetings to get general approval for the process with all that that will cost in politicians, civil servants and overheads. When the new proposals are thrashed out they will be to be sent to all the education and library boards of the councils in the land who are responsible for their implementation. They in turn will have to contact a proportion of the teaching staffs in their areas, find out their take on the matter, prepare a report and send this back to Parliament. The problem here is that the labour taken to do this in the shires will be outside school teaching hours by teachers, and by councillors who are mostly voluntary. In effect this will not cost the government very much. However, it is the next stage that can be frightening expensive. All these reports will have to be categorised by age, and analysed by civil servants; further reports made, Parliamentary committees having to read and comment on the analysis, and the final report prepared. This would then be presented to Parliament to be voted upon and if successful the work would really begin. On the basis of the analysis a new protocol would have to be made and approved, presumably sent to a select number of county councils for comment, and then ultimately the final draft will be printed, probably taking 20 or 30 pages, in view of the number of educational subjects that it would have to be addressed, and these would be sent to every school, all 14,000 of them. The schools themselves would have to hold a teacher and parent meetings to inform the parents of the new proposals. What is patiently clear, even if my assessment is inaccurate, is an awful lot of people will be forced to give their free time to complete the change.

On the evidence of previous Better Britain type initiatives, it will probably come to nothing, except a lot of people would have given a lot of their spare time to the project with no recompense and no result. Just multiply this by the number of different departments of government that are going to be totally assessed for Change, even if it never happens, at great expense to the country and clearly to individuals. You would never have anything of this sort, if all these functions, such as water, sewage, roads, health, and many more, were the functions of local councils, with merely an overseeing role by the government. That system gives the opportunity to try changes in trial areas before making a sweeping change, and possibly stepping off the edge of a precipice. The government is very careful of medicines being given trials, but it seems that that’s where commonsense stops.

I want to make a complaint, but before I do that, I should give the basis of my expertise. At school I played from the Also-rans, and when I was evacuated in 1939/40 I played for a village team on the village green. I could bat a bit, bowled off breaks with some success, but any success was primarily due to the poor quality of the pitch. I sometimes kept wicket, and on one occasion the ball hit my toe, shot straight up, hit me under the chin and caused me to bite my tongue, a unique experience. I always thought batting was best carried out by a comparatively short, stocky and strong men, rather than six-foot-plus willowy creatures as I was, although I did once, more by luck than judgement, score 50 plus. We certainly in those days, never flung ourselves about the village green, sliding on our stomachs after some uncatchable catch, we just stood for ages in the deep, bored out of our tiny minds because the opposition couldn’t hit the ball anywhere near the boundary.

Now for the complaint! I have been watching the Sri Lankan bowler, Malinga, and his chucking action, rather than bowling as everyone else does. It was in the last year or the year before, that there was a whole who-ha about his bowling, and ultimately it was agreed that his action was legal. I beg to differ. We are constantly being regaled by the latest teaching principles of bowling, which is so dependent on the shape of the body just before delivery, and even more importantly after delivery, so as to be legal and what is more important still, to reduce the possibility of damage to the bowler’s spine. The batsmen, who are facing balls travelling at 90 miles an hour do their best to see how the ball was held prior to, and leaving the hand, so they can interpret where and how it will land. Because of the speed with which the ball is hurled, the recognition of these facts is more a matter of instinct and practice, than careful examination, and so, if the bowler has an action which is totally different to everyone else in the game, that bowler has an unfair advantage, and it is no wonder that he has high dismissal records. I protest!

I am a serious sufferer, because I consider that the period between 1933 to the summer of 1939, were halcyon days. We had come out of the austerity of World War I; as far as I remember, unemployment was no longer serious, and there seemed to be very little aggravation of any kind. The trouble with this illness is that you look back on the past through rose coloured glasses, and criticise thoughtlessly about subsequent conditions, without taking into account the inevitable effect of change. For example, with high-speed, mass reporting of the media, we are now presented a diet of ‘man bites dog stories’, on a daily basis in order mainly to boost circulation in whatever form. In the 30s the report of a murder could run to several days, now they are reported at the rate of about 10 a week, most of which are never referred to again. In those days newspapers wouldn’t have dared to delve into the functions of Parliament, nor would there been the political leaks that seem to be a feature of government today.

In the 30s, domestic commerce was conducted, even within large cities, on a village basis. Every village-unit had its own street of barrow boys, it had shops, of all kinds and qualities, to feed the area, and shopping outside the village was treated more as an occasion than a necessity. The popularity of the car, resulting from the lack of public transport, our standard of living, and convenience, has totally changed our shopping system, to the detriment of the small shopkeeper. The throwaway society for similar reasons has made repair rather than renewal almost obsolete. Possibly other than instant communication, these differences, however, have not really been responsible for the upsurge of antisocial behaviour that seems to be the mark of our current age, both nationally and internationally. Terrorism on the scale of today had never been experienced as a worldwide phenomenon until recently. It has nothing whatsoever to do with religion, which is merely used as a tool, but for the advantage of a few, at the detriment of many.

This new age, with broadband, seen by the government to be an essential, yet in actual fact, is more a means of entertainment in the majority of cases, than of tool to improve our social condition, has also been responsible for causing teenagers to adopt a sedentary existence, peering at a blue screen. It is very difficult to separate the individual changes, which have brought us to where we are, a society not comfortable with itself, often changing for the sake of change, without due care and attention to the long-term effects, and then changing once again. It is difficult to learn lessons from the past, because the influences have now become vague with time, and those today are so very disparate from those of the past, that it is foolish to try to draw comparisons. We can only analyse those actions that are abhorrent in the current context, and I for one, should stop looking back, and instead, try to predict effect as a result of cause.

I propose to use my own experience of the credit crunch to show what has happened to thousands of people and thousands of businesses, because those we trusted, chose to and were allowed to steal our money, hive it off, and not only not be taken to book, the government gave them even more money to play with. When I was in my 70s, Sophie and I calculated what we would need should one or both of us been taken ill and had to go into care. At the current rate we would need £15,000 per annum just for one, and as we wanted to retain our home for the other, we saved on a regular basis for a nest egg to cover the differential, to ensure the government could not steal our house to pay for the incarceration, because we were on an income where this could happen. When the crunch came our investments in many cases were decimated. I recalled this as a microcosm of what is happening throughout the land. Careful people in industry and at home have made decisions on the assumption that any change would be minor. Now we know that that was not possible.

I have always felt from my own experience, that apprenticeship in trades, and articles to the professions produced, in many cases, far more competent people at the end of their training, than either the technical colleges or universities produced. They had hands-on experience, possibly a rough ride, but when they came out of training they were experienced. When people come out of college their experience is virtually limited. I have seen General Foremen who knew more through experience, and what they were doing, than the engineers in charge of them.

The effect of this credit crunch is that first of all the schools and colleges are under extreme financial pressure which will inevitably reduce the variety, and possibly even the quality of the education available. We have already seen that in Belfast the Queen’s University is closing its German department. There is hardly a day that passes but we see on television the cutbacks that are occurring right across the board. What is even worse is that our manufacturing and construction industries are closing down or going on short time, throughout the country. The effect of this is that the educational facilities in industry, such as apprenticeship, will be considerably reduced, and so it is the emerging generations who will suffer, and in consequence the ability and the resource of labour, particularly in industry will suffer, and it is this upon which the viability of the country depends. The future for this country will be bleak unless some strong minded leader, pulls us up by our bootlaces as Churchill did in World War II.

I have said before that I can’t understand how so much money from across the world has been hived off and clearly set aside without anybody knowing who has it and where it is. Clearly it is not being used. It must be obvious that if either some individuals, or some country that has gathered in all this money, starts to use it, and we, the nations who have lost the money, have a monitoring system cannot discover any sudden appearance of wealth, then one must assume that the money is virtually gone, and, if it were replaced purely by printing more, so that the finances of the governments that have been affected were back to where they should be, then surely the crunch would be over, or am I so ignorant I can’t imagine an obvious reason why this has not happened?

If you choose to read on, you will probably find that this is not what you expected. I spent two years of my childhood in Northern Rhodesia in the 20s, when the white man ruled and the indigenous population were virtual slaves. But the mindset of the whites had nothing to do with racism, they merely looked upon their African servants, in the way that the average housewife looks at the washing machine and dishwasher today, she feeds it, keeps it clean, has it repaired when required, and takes it for granted. Until the 50s we had hardly heard of racism, it was more a case of demarcation, and I propose to treat all the aspects of demarcation and racism equally.

>From as far back as I can remember there was demarcation, a class system, and snobbery, basically all the same thing, and if you think of the various strata of our society then and now, there hasn’t been that much change, we all have a place and we know our place, whether we decide to make such advantage that we may have as a tool for enhancement is a matter for the individual, not necessarily adopted by all. The titles of the places have changed, it seems that celebrities from whatever background, are more important now than titled people or even those in charge of our destiny. You will never get rid of demarcation, it is the hallmark of success, it has a snob value, and a commercial value.

Racist riots are generally not to do with racism per se, but with territorial, economic or social problems, but the word racism has a tag of an entirely different sort, it is intended to appeal to the conscience of the world, whether valid or not, that there is demarcation that, in most cases, is unacceptable to the minority. This has now become not only a social tool, but a political tool. It gives substance to spurious rhetoric, which can rouse feelings of intense hatred of what is seen as a highly differential demarcation. In all my nearly 90 years, I can’t remember a more disturbed time, when a high proportion of the races of this world were at one another’s throats, apart from WW2. I suggests that if we all considered racism as demarcation, it would be less pejorative and possibly less open to abuse.

With a level gaze, and a firm voice, all our leaders in the House of Commons informed us that they were going to bring us into the 20th century if not the 21st by reforming the way in which the House of Commons was run. But I noticed that with this election of the new Speaker all the old ritual pertained, even to the dragging of the successful member to the Speaker’s chair.

With 600 members voting for 10 candidates, using three votes with successive reductions in the numbers, it must have been bedlam, and taken hours. Then you have all the procedure of everybody getting back on the seats, chattering on the way, and then, presumably, 10 men sent before the Deputy Speaker, to read out the votes. The members are then informed of the reduce selection, and the whole thing is performed again twice more to get a winner. I would suggest that that took probably half a day, and before that there had been considerable discussion throughout the House, concerning the selection of the contestants, the suitability of them, and the strategies needed to get the man home they wanted, which would probably have taken the up the to three hours, on average.

I assume for a simple calculation that the average MP has an annual salary of £100,000, and say another 20,000 for expenses, staff etc making a total of £120,000 per annum, with 600 MPs working a 200 day year this will amount to an all overall cost per hour for the working of Parliament of £360,000. To this must be added the staff to keep the place running, heating and lighting maintenance etc I suggest that the overall cost then becomes closer than £600,000 per hour. If the total consideration and voting procedures took 6 hours, then the cost to the Exchequer from voting would therefore be £2.2m.

I believe I could do it an awful lot cheaper. First of all the contestants had no need to give a wee speech, the fact that they have been put forward surely meant that everybody knew who they were, and what they were, even if the electorate is ignorant. If I had been there I would have had serious doubts about Margaret Beckett’s credentials, but then I’m biased. So I have saved time already. I suspect that I could purchase a gizmo that the ITV programme Who Wants To Be A Millionaire uses for a voting, for probably £60k to £100,000, as I would need 600. Then I would rent the Albert Hall, set up this machine with its vote connections at every one of 600 seats. I will arrange to have printed an A4 sheet with 10 squares at the top with photographs of the contestants and their personal details set in the squares, and the squares will be numbered one to 10. The photographs would be on a page of one of these sticky type pads, so that they could be stripped off and put on to one of 7 squares for those who have been selected, and the three who were rejected will be left on the top row. This procedure would go in this manner until the winner was selected. I think the system would be very simple. The whole vote will only take 20 minutes from start to finish, you would need half an hour to get the people in place and another half hour for them to leave, the people would be seated as they arrived, not in order of their political affiliations. So we’re talking in terms of another half hour, which will be approximately half the price of the system used, but we would be in the 20th century, and as it is possible that that voting machinery would have been designed for 10 people, they could use it time and again in a modern parliament, and thus save money over the years.

You are going to tell me that this is rubbish, and so it is, because it would never happen, but it is a form of moving into the future, cutting costs, and using technology to save money. I only hope, that those who are going to make the changes are sufficiently sophisticated to enable them to embrace the latest technology.

The Blair legacy Right up until the premiership of Anthony Eden, there was very little public criticism of the behaviour of prime ministers as a general rule, other than Neville Chamberlain. Because access to information by the general public only became easy with the advent of television, the average citizen was generally politically lethargic. At the same time the politicians in power, were people dedicated to politics, and either through their own wealth, or being sponsored by political factions rather than being trained at University, did not accept the post as a profession, they did so in order to right the wrongs. Up until Maggie Thatcher, the Cabinets of the governing parties carried a high proportion of older and more experienced politicians.

With Tony Blair and New Labour there was not only a sweeping change in communications because not only was television a universal commentator, but there was also the computer. With Tony Blair there was also a serious change in the way in which politics were conducted, it was a presidential philosophy, and anyone in the Cabinet who disagreed with the PM either resigned or disappeared from office. This was a period of continuous change of portfolio of the members of the Cabinet, they were no sooner in one post, than they were in another. The way in which the handover was done, in which the next Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, was elected by Tony Blair rather than the country, was yet another divergence from the norm. The Blair philosophy also instituted many young and inexperienced politicians to high rank, presumably because they were easier to control, and Blair also openly instituted the spin-doctor. Spurious lies were also a feature. The result of all these changes has been the mess we are in today, where the public not only has no respect any more for our political system, a high proportion are disgusted. There has been a serious lack of control since Gordon Brown took over, in areas like finance, control of reaction to the media, and the almost reflex reaction, rather than serious consideration, which has allowed the media to dictate what is important and demands instant attention.

The electorate, those who are not totally apathetic or disillusioned, are demanding an election, which is being resisted, for now at least. The fact that the choice of politicians who will govern us whichever party finally wins, will be virtually a rubberstamp of the ones they beat, with the same lack of experience, the same personal agenda, and apart from one or two, fearful of losing their job, really bodes little change.

I don’t know whether I’m kidding myself, but I have always thought that my generation, in the long past, was fair with the government and the government was fair with us. So over the last few years it has become a culture shock to discover that the government doesn’t give damn about me, or mine, make statements and legislation that it doesn’t honour, and when I’m not looking keeps putting its hand in my pocket.

I have already said that I am disgusted with the way the banks have got away with what amounts to larceny, with the approval and coercion of the government, when those responsible both in the banking sector and in the government should have been brought to book for the negligence that allowed that to happen, and I have got to pay whether I am able to or not, to keep these banks, their staff and in particular their managers and directors in office. Now I have discovered that one of the bastions of British life, the BBC, to which we all subscribe or have subscribed, on the understanding that we were paying for a service that was unique, unfettered by advertising interests, with a high reputation for quality and probity, is another organ to be tinkered with . I admit there have been minor diversions recently, but I believe the basic principle should be maintained. As I understand it, the level of subsidy has been reduced recently, which makes it more difficult for the BBC to continue producing the number and level of programmes that was the norm. Now the government is proposing to dip into my pocket and take some of the money I intended for the BBC, to bolster up the advertising element of broadcasting, because a credit crunch, that they inaugurated, has had serious effects on advertising and revenue, and therefore the value of the shares in those companies affected.

I have one of these machines that allows one to record programmes ahead of time and subsequently play them back. One of the great advantages of this is that one can skim over the advertisements and cut to the chase. What I have found recently is that in some instances there are practically no advertisements, and in others is that there are 4 1/2 minutes of advertising for every 10 minutes of the display of material - God help us!. I see absolutely no reason why yet another commercial company, in competition with similar companies should suddenly be given part of the money intended for and legislated for the BBC. I feel that yet again my pocket is being picked without me having any readdress. The government does not seem to have taken into account the fact that we have an American company, Skye, that is pouring television programmes and advertising into practically every home, is more responsible for the lack of finances for the company that the government is proposing to help, than the BBC. So why is the government not asking Skye to increase the revenue it pays for displaying programme with commercial television advertising, instead of intending to break the rules encased in the BBC charter?

Speaking in a general sense, I believe that political parties setting out a manifesto is so much eye-wash, a ruse, a loophole, that opens the door to them to take action on the basis of the manifesto if it should happen to suit them, when everyone knows that in this country people vote strategically, by party selection, or for a particular candidate, rather than the principles set out in the manifesto. Unless I am very much mistaken people look upon the manifesto as a form of advertising, as a statement of possible intent, but not intentions cast in stone.

This statement inevitably applies to today. In Belfast on St Patrick’s night in the University district, a proportion of drunken students, had pitched battles, as part of a night out. When constantly complaining about youth behaving either badly or criminally, it is generally considered that it is in the poorer districts, where parental control is lax, and young people have no means, financial or otherwise of enjoying themselves. I see no justification whatsoever why students brought down mayhem on the residents of that road. As a one-time university student I believe there were times when a little high spirits were accepted almost universally, such as boat race night and Rag Days. It was relatively harmless, possibly mildly antisocial, but generally fun, and in my experience in my day, the general public often joined in.

Do you remember the Short Sharp Shock, (SSS) which was a form of remedial punishment for serious misbehaviour not likely to warrant a prison sentence. They sent miscreants to the army for a basic training course that had all the unpleasant features depicted of frictional American army films, to show how tough soldiers are. I had been at the receiving end of SSS both from the Grenadier Guards and the Royal Navy, and have always considered it mindless bullying, and physical aggression for its own sake. Once, when I was looking after the cells in the Navy in charge of two men charged with attempted murder on different occasions, but the same man because of the mindless aggression of that chief petty officer who was drilling us. He felt he had something to prove, come hell or high water, he was going to do so.

I want to go back to 1933 when I sat what was to become the 11 plus examination. If succeeded, there were three options, one could choose to go to a secondary school with fees and books paid for, thus setting one up for University, as articled to a profession, or choose to go to a technical school and learn a trade. One could stay in the elementary school until 14, then go to work as a labourer, or an apprentice etc. If one failed the exam, one had three different options, wait until one was 13 and re-sit the examination, if successful one could the go to a secondary school, or technical school, or when 14 leave the elementary school. Those who failed this would leave the elementary school and go to work. This shows that 14-year-olds had not much time to kick about the streets, if they were at College they would have homework, and if they were at work they wouldn’t get home until six o’clock, have a meal and it would be late on before they would be on the streets with their friends, possibly tired. The one thing they would be is stimulated. I question whether the step by step raising of the school leaving age is as beneficial, taken in the round, as predicted.

With the vandalism in mind I started reminiscing about my time at sea on the lower deck of a very small destroyer, with too many crew-members for the original design. What this taught one was man management - how to behave in a tightly knit environment, self-control, consideration of others, and an ability to turn off what was going on around one and concentrate within one’s own bubble. In effect this was a lesson in community living, which is what I believe is missing in the lives of so many of these young miscreants. They are not being given the right sort of stimulation, and in many cases are being stopped and searched for no apparent reason, which induces a chip on the shoulder. I’m not suggesting that people who misbehave should be sent to sea, but possibly to an environment very similar to what I have described, might be worth experimenting with. Some could indeed go to sea, others could work in difficult environments like mining, that are naturally stressful, fatiguing and restraining.

It is just a thought fostered by my own experience, which I think might be worth consideration and perhaps even trying on a small scale. These youngsters need to stretch themselves, to achieve something that is within their capabilities and current environment, but is mostly impossible because the facilities are too limiting. For six months I have been severely confined as a result of a serious accident, and what I have discovered is that if I try to achieve something new either everyday or as soon as possible, the fact of achieving it gives an incredible fillip to the self-esteem, and builds like child’s building blocks. This is what these young people need, the possibility of widening the horizon week after week and achieving something, nothing stupendous, but something that they think is worthily.