The state of the economy

The last of the three TV election debates was supposed to be about the economy. For me it was ninety tedious minutes of blather and posturing from all three men. So, as a public service to my kind readers, this is all you need to know about the economy:

The UK economy grew at an average of just 1.7% per annum over the last decade -- not only is that lower than during either of the two previous decades under the Tories, it's actually the worst growth since the 1940s.

Unemployment is now 8%, that's the highest it's been since 1996. It's going to go up.

Exactly ten years ago the FTSE stood at 6373, today it's 5618. The UK stock market has suffered its weakest performance of any decade since the Great Depression, according to Morgan Stanley.

Our national debt as a percentage of GDP has more than doubled since Labour came to power.

With decreased GDP per capita and deteriorating exchange rates, the UK standard of living is currently below 2005 levels -- and getting worse.

Things are just about to get really really bad -- for years to come, no matter who ends up in Downing Street next week. Soon you'll no longer have to take my word for that. But why would anyone think the people who've landed us in this disastrous economic mess are in any way qualified to get us out of it?

By the way, if anyone can explain that one to me, I'd be most grateful -- seriously.

Education

Labour massively increased the Education budget -- doubled it in fact! So was that money well spent?

Here's my collection of thirty or so gems reflecting upon education in Britain today. Take a deep breath, and enjoy...

• One in five children leave primary school with a poor grasp of maths. According to a report, around 30,000 pupils started secondary school last year with the maths skills of a seven year old.
• More than three million children have started secondary school without a proper grasp of reading, writing and maths since Labour came to power.
• In a study, 1,300 of the brightest 16-year-olds were presented with questions from old O-level and GCSE papers. An average of one-in-seven questions from tests taken in the 60s and 70s were answered correctly. Even pupils awarded elite A* grades in corresponding GCSEs last summer struggled with traditional questions.
• Students who sat a science exam under the Oxford and Cambridge and the RSA (OCR) board managed to achieve grade C results by scoring as little as 18 per cent on one of their chemistry papers.
• English: fewer 14-year-olds are reaching Level 5 in the subject than in maths or science, according to statistics from the Department for Children, Schools and Families. The data reveals that almost 23 per cent of 14-year-olds, 129,400 in total, did not reach Level 5 in English, the standard expected of the age group. In maths, 21 per cent — 118,500 pupils— did not reach Level 5, and in science, 128,600, or 22 per cent, also failed to achieve this standard.
• One in seven children cannot write their own name after a year at primary school, figures showed.
• Tests carried out in 1980 and again in 2008 show that the IQ score of an average 14-year-old dropped by more than two points over the period. Among those in the upper half of the intelligence scale, a group that is typically dominated by children from middle class families, performance was even worse, with an average IQ score six points below what it was 28 years ago. The trend marks an abrupt reversal of the so-called "Flynn effect" which has seen IQ scores rise year on year, among all age groups, in most industrialised countries throughout the past century
• Clever boys are "dumbing down" at school to avoid being bullied and branded swots, according to research.
• Imperial College London, is introducing its own entrance exam after admitting it struggles to cope with record numbers of students applying with straight As at A-level.
• Universities have been accused of dumbing down after the number of first class degrees doubled in a decade.
• A study of written work produced by British final-year university students revealed that, on average, they had 52.2 punctuation, grammatical and spelling errors per paper compared with just 18.8 from international students.
• A decision has been made to make A-levels tougher -- or "recalibrated" to stem the fall in standards presided over by Labour, but Ofqual, the exams regulator, admitted students may be able to pass with lower marks than in the past.
• A pupil with seven GCSEs has been enrolled to an adult literacy course, because he can't read or write properly -- seven GCSEs, how does that work?
• More than two million children are being taught in schools that are mediocre or failing, Ofsted inspectors have said
• Millions of school and college leavers are 'not fit for work', the boss of Marks & Spencer has warned. Chairman Sir Stuart Rose said too many didn't even have a basic grasp of the three Rs.
• In a survey, 26% of under-16s thought bacon came from a sheep

So much for standards, what about the curriculum?

• Next year pupils will be tested on text messaging as part of their English GCSEs.
• Teachers should liven up lessons with games such as bingo, Blockbusters and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? to prevent pupils misbehaving, the Government's school discipline tsar, Sir Alan Steer has said.
• Under new rules, sixth formers study just four topics for A-level history, compared to about ten a decade ago, ensuring that great swathes of British and world history are left out.
• English lessons are being killed off in schools, with children no longer able to read for pleasure or express themselves through writing, a union leader has said.
• The Cambridge Primary Education Review, led by education expert Robin Alexander, found that schools are producing a generation of 'philistines' as science, history, geography and the arts disappear from the curriculum.

Or how about these gems...

• Independent schools, that educate only 7% of the school population produce more straight A pupils at A-level than the comprehensive system.
• Ed Balls wants to tear up the traditional ranking system for school league tables in favour of grading schools on their pupils' health and wellbeing as well as their exam results.
• Dr Carol Craig, chief executive of the centre for confidence and well-being in Scotland, said children were being over-praised and were developing an "all about me" mentality.
• Teachers believe pupils' behaviour has worsened in the past few years, with children being disrespectful, insulting and even physically aggressive in the classroom. More than eight in 10 said they had been verbally abused and insulted, while more than half said they had faced threats or been sworn or shouted at.
• Nearly 30% of school staff have been the subject of a false allegation of misconduct by a pupil, a survey by a teaching union suggests.
• More than 40,000 children aged between four and seven were excluded from their primary schools last year.
• As many as three-quarters of state schools are failing to push their brightest pupils because teachers are reluctant to promote 'elitism', an Ofsted study has said.
• Labour's flagship, Sheffield Park Academy - opened last year by the Duke of York following a £30m redevelopment - will become the third of the schools to be placed in "special measures".
• A report by the think tank Politeia found that teachers in England are the least qualified in the developed world

...and I could go on, (and on).

So, if you care about education -- then why would you vote for Labour?

Humphrys and Davis: Hubris and Sneer

If sneering and partisanship were the mark of excellence in radio news journalism, then recent editions of "The Today Programme" would sweep the awards.

Yesterday it was John Humphrys with Michael Gove, today it was the turn of Evan Davis with Chris Grayling. Not that I'm a big fan of Mr. Grayling either, but it would be so nice to go back to those good old days when the BBC really did pay more than just lip service to professional standards -- when people like Robin Day could deliver interesting, insightful and moreover, tough interviews that focussed on well-researched facts, and without the need for grandstanding or for couching questions in sneering and insulting language. Go listen to the interviews here, if you want to know exactly what I'm referring to.

I used to be a very vocal defender of the BBC and of the licence fee, and to be fair I still regard it as value for money, but these days I find there's a lot less to defend, and much more to criticize.

It's been a life-long observation of mine that programme makers, and particularly BBC programme makers, never ever (ever) accept any criticism of their programmes....ever. If they should continue in that vein, against a tide of evidence to the contrary, then quite frankly, they deserve all that's coming to them.