The media have zoned in on the violence at the national student demo against tuition fees and cuts to education, which is not surprising. It is sad that I am even discussing it now, because the demonstration was otherwise a phenomenally strong message to the Government that the student movement was prepared to fight—and win—a [...]

Filed under: education, tuitionfees on November 12th, 2010 | 1 Comment »

Before I set off on what is almost certain to quickly degenerate into a bad tempered, cynical right wing rant, fuelled by 6 hours of Anglo Saxon reading, it’s probably best to say a little bit about myself. I am a 2nd year historian at Clare, but more importantly I am something rarer than a [...]

Filed under: education, tuitionfees, ukpolitics on November 7th, 2010 | 5 Comments »

There wasn’t much to laugh about in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, but for Lord Browne there must have been at least a glimmer of consolation. With the persistent gaffes and rapidly accelerated departure of his successor, Tony Hayward, Browne became only the second most disgraced BP chief executive of the last five years.
His [...]

Filed under: education, ukpolitics on October 12th, 2010 | No Comments »

New Labour was pronounced dead on Saturday as Ed Miliband professed his desire to take the party in a different direction. The era of Blair, Brown, and Miliband senior is over, and so now seems the perfect opportunity to reflect on its record, beginning with the election of Tony Blair as Labour leader in 1994, and [...]

Filed under: crime, defence, education, gordonbrown, health, labour, tonyblair on September 30th, 2010 | No Comments »

Creative Commons licensed photo courtesy of Flickr user jackhynes.
Every year for the past 27 years GCSE results have gone up and a quarter of A level passes are now at grade A. One might think this was a chance to congratulate teenagers in their achievements but conversely the better the exam results the more they [...]

Filed under: education on January 13th, 2010 | No Comments »

Creative Commons licensed photograph courtesy of Flickr user jgraham.
Even after eleven years, there’s still something a bit shocking about tuition fees. If the vice-chancellors get their way, fees will rise to at least £5000 per student per year. It’s a policy that flaunts its pragmatism on its sleeve. I still think fees defy any principled [...]

Filed under: barackobama, education, jonathanbirch, labour, religion, ukpolitics on March 17th, 2009 | No Comments »

‘I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.’
— Martin Luther King 28th August 1963
‘We must recognise that we can’t solve our problem now until there is a radical [...]

Filed under: barackobama, education, poverty, racism on March 1st, 2009 | 1 Comment »

I was saddened to see Michael Reiss step down today as the Royal Society’s Director of Education. I have been following the furore over his supposedly pro-Creationist remarks — noting the complete absence of incriminating direct quotations in any of the reports. The reality, obviously, is that Reiss is no Creationist. He thinks Creationism is [...]

Filed under: education, jonathanbirch, religion on September 16th, 2008 | No Comments »

There’s an interesting post over at Marginal Revolution (which is probably the most consistently interesting blog on the planet, so if you don’t read it, start now) about why so many US politicians are lawyers. The phenomenon is not quite as great in the UK though Tony Blair, Michael Howard and Ming Campbell were all [...]

Filed under: education, ideas, ukpolitics on January 24th, 2008 | 1 Comment »

Dave on Fire is right, migration is certainly not a modern phenomenon. Humanity began in Africa (probably) and the first immigrants to these isles have been followed by many other groups who sought a new life in our rainy ‘Atlantic archipelago’ (in John Pocock’s phrase). I made it sound as if that was unimportant, and [...]

Filed under: education on February 7th, 2007 | No Comments »