The Rambler

And the latest blogging retirement is... Me.

2011-02-02T18:53:00.000Z

"The true literary ancestry of the Rambler is overlooked, and our conception of it trivialised, if we concentrate merely on the periodical essay as it descended from Addison and Steele. In one respect it was perfectly right to contrast the Rambler so unfavourably with the Tatler and the Spectator. It took the Spectator as the prototype of one special form (the periodical essay) and then, finding the Rambler so much more serious in tone and weighty in thought, judged the author as failing to fulfil the special ideas and opportunities of that particular form. A more accurate statement is simply that he transcended that form."

So wrote the late literary critic Walter Jackson Bate. To him, the Rambler was "timeless".

Bate, of course, never read these pages - he expired in 1999, aged eighty-one, when this author was only thirteen. Bate was one of the foremost literary authorities on the life of Samuel Johnson, and it was the great lexicographer's mid-eighteenth century periodical that he was referring to.

Johnson wrote 208 articles in his Rambler between 1750 and 1752. My Rambler has offered 82 articles in eighteen months, roughly half of the output of the former (although my articles have only been appearing regularly since May 2010).

A confession: I had never heard of Johnson's Rambler when this all started, so I cannot truthfully claim any philosophical or literary lineage. The name was purely functional. I liked rural walks and thought that I would chronicle, haphazardly but improvedly, my rambles and travels. Any idle readership would be an unexpected bonus.

So the connection is fortuitous but one that I have enjoyed learning more about, grasping greedily at analogies. Admittedly, they are few, however Bate's comparisons with the Spectator are not completely irrelevant. Addison and Steele's Spectator of 1711-12 is not connected to the modern publication, but then neither is this to Johnson's. However, it was when reading the Coffee House blog during the last general election that it occurred to me to turn a sleepy little escapist travelogue about (quite literally) rambling into a regular political and cultural commentary. So you could say that the Spectator was an inspiration for me to pick up my pen and write, as it was for Samuel Johnson. It was somewhat touching, you might imagine, the day last year that the Spectator itself described the Rambler as a "must read".

Samuel Johnson said about retirement: "Don't think of retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retire." You can't vouch for sentiment, but the graphic below might suggest - if you exclude a distracted final fortnight - that readership was on the climb.

Of course, this is not quite a retirement. The writing shall continue, only elsewhere. In December last year I was offered the exciting opportunity to become editor of a newly re-launched blog for the Tory Reform Group.

The TRG believes that there is a gap online for a prominently modern, progressive Conservatism, which should not have to be divided up into mainstream or liberal, right or left, but provide a distinctive and informative voice for pragmatic politics.

The new blog, Egremont, takes its name from the male protagonist of Benjamin Disraeli's seminal novel, Sybil, or The Two Nations. It will be going live very shortly and will carry a minimum of 1-2 short articles every weekday. Our first week is devoted to Scottish affairs and will feature articles by John Lamont MSP, and the former Foreign Secretary, Sir Malcolm Rifkind MP.

We believe that it can and will hold its own alongside - complementary to, not antagonistic to - existing political opinion sites. Please give it a go and see what you think. Tell you what, if you visit the new website and say that you have come from the Rambler in the 'Ask me anything' section, I'll even buy you a drink.

There's a deal that Dr Johnson could relate to.

Want a reason for re-nationalising British railways? Try 23 billion...

2011-01-29T18:10:00.000Z

There is this old yarn about an encounter between Churchill and Attlee in the House of Commons latrines, after the war. As the recently elected Labour Prime Minister entered, Churchill moved to the far end of the room. "My dear old Winston," groused Attlee, "I had hoped that although we are opponents again in the House, we might still be friendly outside it."

"Now, now, Clement," replied Churchill, "I have no quibble with you, my good man; it is only that in my experience, when you set eyes on something that is very big and functions well, you are wont to nationalise it."

Irrespective of its proportions, Churchill had good reason to fear for his gentleman's sausage. Targets big, small, functional and dysfunctional, were nationalised between 1946 and 1951, including the Bank of England, the coal, steel, electricity and gas industries, and, of course, the railways. On Churchill's return to Downing Street his privy parts had been spared, yet one-ffith of the UK economy was in public ownership.

The majority of this was reversed by an equally ideological privatisation spree in the 1980s and 1990s. Only the Old Lady managed to escape the Iron Lady.

In most cases, privatisation has been a Good Thing. It has resulted in improved performance, greater efficiency and more accountability. Competition has driven down prices for consumers and enforced more disciplined and accountable management. Profit making has attracted further capital investment.

Not for the railways. Rail companies talk a lot about improved statistics but passengers have to live with perceptibly declining standards, massive fare increases, under investment and unacceptable overcrowding. First Great Western might claim that they have been on time nearly nine times out of ten in the past year but I would offer my Twitter feed as a more reliable indicator of their (un-)punctuality (WARNING: adult language).

Regular readers know how I feel about our historically important railways. Like John Redwood wrote on his online diary yesterday, "I like railways."

Okay. He didn't say that. He said, "I like trees." Yet the sentiment is sort of the same, for he was discussing the merits of private sector trees versus public sector trees.

I am quite sure that John Redwood would say that he does like railways too, yet as with trees, he likes them to be private sector, not public sector. Outwardly, all Conservative politicians would agree. Inwardly, some are not so sure. Inwardly, several would tell you that the railways were a privatisation too far. Inwardly, some want them back.

The Times (£) reports that the £23 billion of Network Rail debt is to be brought back on to the Government's books "to secure greater leverage over the private company." This is a bold and decisive act for a Government whose principle objective is to reduce the nation's enormous debts.

The potential for a re-nationalisation of Network Rail is being played down but not discounted. The initial aim of making the railways more accountable and transparent is a good one, considering the taxpayer already subsidises the company to the tune of £4 billion per year.

Even if Network Rail was bought by the Government, the nonsense of separate ownership of tracks and trains would still exist (except for the recently nationalised East Coast franchise). It would still be a step closer to the wholesale dependency of the industry on the state, unless major franchise reforms take place, such as lengthening contracts.

There are a litany of reasons why privatisation has not worked for the railways. Fragmentation has created inefficiencies rather than efficiencies and costs have not come down. These inefficiencies in a strategic industry such as the railways have prompted ever higher state subsidies, to the extent that the taxpayer now spends more on railways in real terms than when they owned them fully. Competition (and driving up of standards) cannot exist in railways like it can in utilities such as gas.

These and other reasons might be widely known and ever more widely ignored but in taking on Network Rail's financial liabilities, the Government has given twenty-three billion reasons why a return to public ownership cannot be ignored for much longer.

It would be an economically and philosophically retrograde step - an admission of failure. It would also be a very dear transaction for the taxpayer. Although I am more of a supporter of nationalised railways than most, I acknowledge that this would be a Bad Thing. Yet as the state takes on more and more responsibility for their proper functioning, soon it will seem like the only pragmatic thing to do.

Lick your finger & poke it in the air: tuition fees according to Aaron Porter

2011-01-26T00:51:00.000Z

"Fees? They'll be this big...."

The BBC is carrying an article in which NUS president Aaron Porter claims that "most degrees will cost £9,000".

Of course, the BBC can't just refer to him as the NUS president - he must be qualified as the "articulate" NUS president. Sadly, the adjective fits. Aaron is articulate. He can be charming and persuasive. He probably is also a "moderate", as described - but when others in your much-vaunted student protest movement are going to prison for throwing fire extinguishers off buildings at police officers, or climbing on and defacing the Cenotaph, that is no tall order.

Yet in terms of public announcements about possible tuition fee levels, Porter veers from the ignorant to the ludicrous to the downright reckless. In the past, the NUS has been guilty of irresponsible and flawed market research. At least that was based on a semblance of quantitative analysis and a verified sample, however amateur in construction. Porter's latest analysis is based on little more than "behind the scenes conversations."

What an extraordinary basis for an announcement of this sort, even from a NUS president. Porter also suspects, "50%, 60%, 70% are going to charge £9,000." Quite the margin of error, but then getting out and about and having a chat with someone is an inexact science so we should not be too harsh.

Like Aaron, in the last couple of years I have shared my own "behind the scenes conversations" with people in the HE sector. As a management consultant, my colleagues and I travelled around the country and met university executives to discuss strategy, marketing and, most importantly, pricing. We spoke to universities from all parts of the sector about their approaches to pricing, market research and the Browne Review. Last summer, in conjunction with other HE specialists, we published a White Paper, 'How prepared are English universities for a more deregulated tuition fees?'

This research was conducted with senior managers from a wide variety of pre- and post-1992 universities. When asked about optimal levels for their own institutions, there was a clear preference for fees below the £7,000 level. A fee of between £6,000 and £7,000 was the most frequently selected by pre-1992 universities, although an equal proportion were comfortable with fees above this level. By contrast, all but one of the post-1992 respondents considered a level up to £5,000 or £6,000 as optimal.

University executives, in my experience, have a good grasp of who their students are and what their marketplace can sustain. There is an element of truth in a sticker price being a mark of quality. In our research, we identified some concern amongst post-1992 institutions about how they would communicate their value propositions and protect their brand if they were not able to price at the top end of the fees threshold.

Yet charging "what they can get away with", as Porter suggests, also means taking into account the marketplace. If a university finds, via scientific pricing research, that what they can get away with before participation falls off a cliff is £6,000 or £7,500, that is as far as they can go. Universities might increasingly look and feel like businesses (they certainly pay their vice-chancellors accordingly) but they do not truly think like businesses.

Even if Porter is right, and 50%, 60% or 70% (take your pick, he can't) of institutions do decide to charge the maximum £9,000, it is highly unlikely that they will do so across their range of courses. The Times' Good University Guide (£) ranks Queen Mary outside the elite institutions at 36th, yet mentions that "linguistics, geography and drama produced the best results in their fields." Lancaster University has average-to-good results across the board but excels in terms of teaching and satisfaction, whilst it has the best physics results in the country. Many universities have special areas of expertise, for which a premium can be charged. If 70% of them are charging £9,000 for just a couple of courses, why is that a problem, as long as it means the necessary financial support is there?

Which brings me to my final point, and the one that the NUS' simplistic view simply doesn't grasp. If a university is charging up to £9,000 then according to the Government (details to be confirmed in the upcoming White Paper), that university must justify it by meeting very strict access criteria.

I suggest that the NUS president licks his finger and pokes it in the air once more. See which way the wind is blowing: towards a sustainable future for universities and students in this country, not towards an unrealistic distant past. It is a nostalgia that we might both share but that only one of us sees for what it is: nostalgia.

Much ado about what in particular? Or the Guardian and lazy journalism

2011-01-25T23:31:00.001Z

When I tell certain people that I enjoy reading the Guardian, they give me a quizzical look - as though they are a parent whose son has returned from his first term at university with his polo shirt done up to the top button. He looks like the son you knew and there shouldn't, in theory, be anything wrong with doing up the top button of a polo shirt but...you just know he probably won't be the same again.

But there you go. My name is Nik and I read the Guardian. I've said it.

Why do I read it? You get something different from its news coverage, for a start - the Guardian tends to cover quite different sorts of topics, or at least the same topics from a quite different angle. So it is informative and challenges me to think differently or to reinforce my views. Plus it has a stellar cast of columnists, from Michael White to Michael Kettle; Sir Simon Jenkins to Simon Hoggart; Julian Glover to Polly Toynbee. Even Polly. You might not always (you might never) agree with her but she is a media heavyweight.

Yet sometimes you do wonder why you read the Guardian; moments like when you come across Patrick Butler's blog today, 'Domestic violence: women's charities face 100% cuts'. From the starting blocks, you know precisely where this is all heading:

"In an era of senseless cuts to vital public services, here's one that in its brutal scale and short-sightnedness almost beggars belief: Devon county council's proposals to reduce funding for domestic violence support services by 100%."

Brief summary: as part of its budget settlement, Devon County Council is, like all councils, having to make cuts to its expenditure. As part of that, it has proposed to remove £1 million of funding from three domestic violence charities. That represents less than one-fiftieth of the overall cuts being made. It represents 0.0006% of local government spending; or 0.0001% of total UK spending. Of course cuts to charities - whom I'm sure do a good job - are regrettable but Butler's way of expressing it is utterly pathetic.

First, of course these things look bad, but that's localism for you and the chief paradox at the middle of the Government's worthy decentralisation programme. The centre wants to devolve responsibility and accountability but flak still returns to the centre, even though it's not their decision.

Secondly, this is simply media trailing. The council is putting out an interim suggestion on where cuts might fall but the actual decision isn't being taken until later. It's part and parcel of announcements to gauge public reaction and act accordingly and governments have been doing it as long as there's been a popular press. The decision has not been made.

Thirdly, in typical Guardian style, the author mews sanctimoniously about a single issue and won't mention any context. At least Polly Toynbee tends to put things in context. What other actions are Devon County Council taking as part of their budget settlement? Who knows, not the general reader because they haven't read the settlement, perhaps the journalist hasn't bothered either. If you go to Devon County Council's website you will see that, yes, they have to propose £54.6 million of budget cuts. In spite of that, there will be increases for social care for older people and people with disabilities, children in care and children with special needs. Direct grants to schools will increase and no libraries will close. They are undergoing public consultation before announcing the full settlement next month.

Moreover, what do we know about or are told about the state of Devon? Have quick look at the National Statistics website and you'll see that the south-west of England has the highest life expectancies and the lowest proportion of the population in social rented housing. It has one of the highest household incomes in the country outside London; the lowest proportion of workless households; and the lowest crime rates in England.

Now have another very quick glance (its quite simple all this research) at recent British Crime Survey statistics on domestic violence:

"The risk of intimate violence varied by demographic, socio-economic and lifestyle characteristics. Characteristics that were independently associated with an increased risk of intimate violence across all the forms included marital status (in particular being unmarried), housing tenure, age (under the age of 45), and having a limiting disability or illness."

I'm not saying for a moment that there are not some serious cases of domestic violence against women that occur in Devon. But, in short, Devon is evidently not the epicentre of the problem.

It isn't only the Guardian (the Daily Telegraph is turning into a tabloid with a bow-tie), but it does really grates me the way things like this are reported. A narrative has been cast about these cuts and elements of the media will use any scraps they can find to flesh that narrative out - irrespective of context or relativity.

The Government is chucking (increased) billions of pounds at fighting poverty and preventable diseases in the developing world; ring-fencing the health budget against much opposition (including the Labour and Liberal parties) because, what a surprise, Tories do care about the NHS; protecting Post Offices from further closures.... And the Guardian is kicking and screaming about a million quid for a charity doing a job that local social services probably ought to be doing anyway?

Of course, these hacks aren't going to stop this sort of thing. So, an apt consideration in present circumstances: the Government must sharpen its communications operation. Richard Lambert's pronouncements on the economy recently may well have been "pathetic" on some levels, according to Lord Lawson, but his accusation of drift and lack of purpose in the Government's overall message holds a fair amount of truth.

In Much Ado About Nothing (Act V), Claudio says Hero has been "done to death by slanderous tongue." The Government must sell its strategy and (already considerable) achievements, or journalists will disseminate their own versions of events. Leave it too late, for the hoped-for freebie frenzy in 2013-14, and the chance of electoral resurrection might have already gone. Get the message right now - and it has to be now, before the cuts really bite - and you might just be able to take the country with you.

Anglo-Dutch free trade alliance reminds us what the EU is for

2011-01-25T14:57:00.001Z

Whilst his MPs are squabbling in the House of Commons about the European Union Bill, the Prime Minister is on the continent making friends.

The Guardian reports that David Cameron, "in his first major EU initiative since becoming Prime Minister", is attempting to create an internal free market area with the Dutch. This would permit professional and service workers to work throughout the European continent. The article is just a bit amnesic: Cameron's biggest initiative on the European stage to date has been to limit the increase of the EU budget from 6% to no more than 2.9%, in concert with the French and Germans. The more cynical might observe that an even bigger achievement has been simply not to cause a row.

That is by the by, for the crux of the matter - an Anglo-Dutch free trade alliance - carries intriguing historical overtones.

England and the Netherlands spent a lot of the seventeenth century coming to nautical blows over the issue of who ruled the waves - and therefore international trade. The Dutch could not find a way to defeat Cromwell (who could, but Death himself?) but generally they came out on top and in 1667 their raid of the English fleet at Medway ranks as one of this island nation's worst humiliations.

The great French Annalist Fernand Braudel wrote, "history may be divided into three movements: what moves rapidly, what moves slowly and what appears not to move at all.”

The Dutch navy may have been fleeter of foot by the broadside, but moving slowly alongside beneath the swifter current of events was the burgeoning dominance of international finance and trade by the City of London and the nascent British Empire.

The prompt for both of these phenomena - warfare and mercantile superiority - were the Navigation Acts. These laws, first passed in 1651, were designed to protect English colonial trade with European rivals, particularly the Dutch. Some historians say that they were a crucial part of the eventual British dominance of world trade and the City's financial preeminnce. Also pivotal was the accession of William of Orange to the English crown in 1688, which swung the attention of Dutch financiers towards London.

It is oft proclaimed that Britain was at the vanguard of free trade and liberty. There is some truth in this, if your history books begin with the Pax Britannica. For much of Britain's rise to global prominence had been on the back of protectionism and naval power. The Navigation Acts were only repealed in 1849, by which point Great Britain ruled the waves. Liberalising trade routes did not level the playing field, so much as give British traders more markets to buy and sell in.

With the benefit of hindsight, the respective tales of Britain and Holland could have been quite different. Both relied on a strong navy to project power and an early mastery of trade and finance. On the latter count, the Dutch were certainly the superiors. They even contested similar regions of influence, such as North America, the Caribbeean, the Cape of Good Hope and south-east Asia. Eventually, Britain came out on top, but it could have been different.

Now Britain and Holland appearto be joining forces to remind their fellow Europeans what the EU is for: liberalised markets for free trade in goods, services and personnel. Many Conservative MPs have a keen taste for history - not least Bill Cash, who I know to be writing a biography of free trade campaigner John Bright.

Although a free trade alliance between Britain and Holland may seem out of step with the historical record, it sends a message that the European project has lots its way in a search for political, as opposed to economic, union (the clue ought to have been in the title, really).

This, then, is a timely reminder to dissatisfied eurosceptic MPs - particularly those in the new intake - that their Prime Minister has the right idea about Europe. An idea more nuanced and pragmatic than they might like, perhaps, but this really ought to be a European adventure on which leader and party can see eye to eye.

Ed Balls now has Miliband in the palm of his hand

2011-01-20T22:22:00.003Z

I haven't really got time for this, but...

The Alan Johnson resignation this afternoon came as a shock. The affable former postman might have taken to his new brief like a duck to a shooting range, and he wasn't joking about needing an economics primer, however who genuinely saw this coming?

The embarrassing gaffes have not helped. Not only have they damaged Labour presentationally, they have wounded a good man's pride. No one enjoys being ridiculed, especially about their maths gremlins. And honestly, as much as I like Johnson, telling a BBC journalist that they "probably read more" of the last Labour budget is a self-deprecation too far for a Shadow Chancellor.

But strategically, Johnson was still useful for Ed Miliband. I wrote in October that the choice of Johnson was "strikingly astute" as it tied up a critical colleague and reassured the public that Labour would pursue a credible economic policy by backing Alistair Darling's deficit reduction plans.

The alternative - Ed Balls - had long advocated a softer policy that would put further investment, growth and recovery ahead of deficit reduction and higher taxes for the rich to mitigate spending cuts. When it came to the decision, Miliband rightly acknowledged reality and plumped for Johnson, sending Balls off to shadow Theresa May.

Since then, however, Labour's economic message, driven by Miliband and Johnson, has been a 'me-too' muddle: opposing some cuts but broadly agreeing that the deficit had to be addressed. Miliband's leadership has never got off the ground, paternity leave or not.

Meanwhile, Ed Balls has been in combative mood, impressing as shadow home secretary, most recently in portraying the Government's hokey-cokey dance over Control Orders as playing party politics with national security.

He has also not been keeping his dissatisfaction with the Labour leadership's economic policy to himself. As early as the CSR you could tell he was fuming inside as he watched Alan Johnson stand up to deliver a happy-go-lucky slapstick routine when Balls' well-reviewed Bloomberg speech would have been more effective, to put it lightly.

As wicked irony would have it, had Ed Miliband appointed Ed Balls as his Shadow Chancellor back in October, the new leader would probably have been able to command a certain amount of authority over his defeated challenger.

Now, however, Balls is in the ascendency and in spite of a good victory in Oldham last week, Miliband is struggling. Personal dynamics are also important. When Gordon Brown was Chancellor, Balls was his right-hand man (apparently unable to make decisions without consulting him) whereas Miliband was a junior adviser. On economic policy (at the very least) it will be Balls, not his leader, who will be running the show.

The Government can use this to its advantage if it can successfully paint Ed Balls as the man who, along with Gordon Brown, got the country into its present mess. If the spinners can manage to depict Miliband as the 'son of Brown', Balls is a much more obvious target.

Yet allow Balls to gain even an inch and he'll take not one yard but ten. Say what you like about him - he is a consummate political operator. His first task is likely to be to attack the Government over inflation and VAT - on both counts he can turn his involvement in the last Labour Government to his advantage. Back then, he and Brown presided over the NICE decade - the Governor of the Bank of England wasn't writing many letters to the Chancellor in those years. There are myriad reasons why the analogy is inadequate but that never stopped a good soundbite.

And VAT, which is contributing to rising inflation and crucially inflationary expectations, is a topic on which Ed Balls actually has some credibility. It was Balls who, before the last General Election, insisted that Labour must pledge not to raise VAT. He was correctly and honourably overruled by Alistair Darling.

Now that Balls is calling the shots, he can tell us all that he was right all along. Don't increase the regressive VAT, which hurts ordinary hard-working British families - put up taxes on the rich instead.

I sometimes hear Conservative backbenchers confiding that the man pulling the strings in Government is George Osborne. Now his opposite number will be doing the same for Labour. And like Osborne, Balls is a scheming politician to the bones: they are always sniffing around for dividing lines.

However it all pans out, you can count on something. The Chancellor can say goodbye to relaxing skiing trips to Klosters. With Ed Balls conducting the Opposition's orchestra, he'll be lucky if he gets a spare weekend.

History's place in the National Curriculum risks being an unnecessary reprisal of 'Greatest Britons'

2011-01-20T13:48:00.006Z

A review of the National Curriculum begins today and Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, appeared on the Today programme this morning to talk about the "essential knowledge" that pupils must acquire, which includes certain great historical figures.

Martin Sewell writes over on Conservative Home about the "lamentable" fact that the only historical figures who "specifically appear" in the National Curriculum are Tory MP and anti-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce, and the prominent African slave activist Olaudah Equianau.

Sewell offers Mr Gove a predictable list of great men and women who he "would prescribe were [he] in the Education Secretary's position."

His list was in no particular order but I am going to rearrange it chronologically, as this is how government advisor Simon Schama intends history to be taught, and what Mike Baker argued for in the Guardian earlier this week.

Alfred the Great
William I
Henry VIII
Elizabeth I
Oliver Cromwell
Thomas Paine
Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson
William Wilberforce
Robert Owen
Sir Winston Churchill

It is a perfectly reasonable and comprehensive list, spanning the period from the 9th to the 20th centuries and incorporating great leaders (political and military), thinkers and campaigners.

Yet the problem with Sewell's list is that it is unnecessary. As Prof Colin Jones (president of the Royal Historical Society) writes today at the Guardian's Mortarboard Blog, "the current syllabus deliberately eschews naming 'great' individuals, on the understandable assumption that teachers already know about key figures."

I have been learning, reading and writing about British history for the better part of two decades and I have either covered (at school) - or had the opportunity to cover - each historical figure on his list.

Sewell states his aim as highlighting names "that would, of necessity, carry any teaching discussion into related areas - so that, inevitably, anyone studying these would encounter other important names, ideas and events."

Well it works the other way around, too. Study the English Civil War and you shall encounter Cromwell. Study the Tudors (as schoolchildren do ad infinitum) and you cannot miss Henry VIII, nor his most successful daughter. And so on.

Where Sewell is correct is to describe the present situation as "lamentable". Historical understanding, in spite of the popularity of history documentaries and the presence of history books on bestsellers lists, is deficient in Britain. We have become a country in love with history but with no knowledge of the past.

The place to remedy this is in schools and the Government should start by putting in place a broad, chronological curriculum to follow (I await the contributions of Simon Schama and Niall Ferguson with interest). Don't elect any individuals above others - that means removing Messrs Wilberforce and Equianau too, however valid their elevation might seem to trendy apologists.

The curriculum should not be about which famous figures we explicitly study or not. The debate about where history sits in a National Curriculum, if conducted like this, will become nothing more than a gratuitous reprisal of the Greatest Britons series. If we want children to learn about and be proud of our island story then teach them the story, not a roll-call of fashionable canonical 'greats' whose names sell biographies.

Cambridge University dons in silent protest are missing the bigger picture

2011-01-17T15:22:00.005Z

Academics at the University of Cambridge are staging a silent protest today against, as the Guardian reports, the government's "devastating" higher education reforms.

Turning up in black gowns and hoods, like a macabre intellectual wake, they say it is a display of "discontent" at the proposed increase in tuition fees (for full-time undergraduate UK students, remember) and the perceived "marketisation" of higher education in this country.

There is a peculiar irony here. Undergraduate tuition fees might be doubled or trebled under the Government's reforms. The fears of staff at less prestigious institutions about the potential imapct on access are understandable - if also answerable. Yet staff at the University of Cambridge ought not to be so vexed, and this is why.

Cambridge is one of only two British universities that can rival US institutions in terms of endowment funds (the other, unsurprisingly, is Oxford). According to college and university data from 2008-09, Cambridge's total endowment fund runs to just under £4 billion. This would put it towards the lower end of the top ten US institutions - far behind Harvard (on a breathtaking $25.6 billion), Yale ($16.3 bn), Stanford ($12.6 bn) and Princeton ($12.6 bn), but ahead of the likes of Columbia ($5.8 bn), Chicago ($5.5 bn) and Pennsylvania ($5.2 bn). To put this into context, behind Oxbridge the next highest endowment fund in the UK belongs to the University of Edinburgh (£200 million), unaffected by the Government's reforms.

This vast wealth allows Cambridge and its constituent colleges to erect an arsenal of bursaries that other institutions in this country can only dream of. The university's financial statement for 2010 informs us:

The University is committed to admitting students of the highest intellectual potential, irrespective of social, racial, religious, financial or other considerations. The University ensures that individuals from all backgrounds can benefit from the opportunities afforded by a first-rate education and are not unreasonably excluded from those opportunities by the charging of fees. The University ensures that bursaries are available where necessary and outreach activities are undertaken to improve participation by under-represented groups.

Who else, other than Oxford, is in such an enviable position to fulfil these commitments? Cambridge staff ought to be welcoming the increase in tuition fees because it permits the university to extract financing from those with the willingness and ability to pay, therefore creating an even bigger fund for the creation of bursaries for those equally willing but less able to pay. In other words, only Cambridge and Oxford are in a position to practise the purely needs-blind admissions system one sees at the likes of Yale and other major US institutions.

At Harvard, only 5 per cent of students pay the full level of tuition fees. Although the maximum fee can be as much as $50,000 (including accommodation and supplementaries), the average fee paid is more like $12,000. If your household income is less than $60,000 (£37,700) you pay nothing at all.

As long as the system for university funding in this country remains wedded to an unrealistic past (and yes, if we are to continue expanding the number of students attending university, it is unrealistic) a purely needs-blind admissions system is impossible. Even with the present reforms it is unattainable for almost all universities because fees of up to £9,000 only just meet the cost of education, and it is very likely that many institutions feel that they cannot charge much beyond the lower threshold of £6,000.

Yet Cambridge (and Oxford) have that opportunity to achieve the egalitarian educationalist's nirvana - world class higher education irrespective of ability to pay.

There is a wider aspect to the dons' protest, in that they are concerned about how the Government's reforms might affect not only the University of Cambridge but higher education in the country as a whole. I have some sympathy with that honourable sentiment but my response to it is this: the Government's reforms present universities with a chance to become truly liberated from central interference and to pursue their own means in reaching top quality academic ends. University administrators and academics have been demanding less state interference for generations, if not centuries, so why stop now?

Moreover, isn't this an opportunity for Cambridge, if it is so concerned about the wider sector, to offer help and assistance to sector colleagues who are struggling? Opportunities abound to run joint programmes (as many universities already do), sponsor joint awards, extraneously merge institutes and faculties and even just offer some advice. Cambridge and Oxford have the history, prestige and investments that permitted them to build up such large endowment funds over time but from what I am told by people in the industry, they are also a long way ahead of the pack when it comes to professional fundraising. Can some of this expertise be shared? A healthy HE sector is in everyone's interest.

There is a troubling problem with the 'cuts' narrative, which is that fiscal retrenchment seemingly offers only trauma and backward steps. It reveals a depressing lack of optimism. All over the apparatus of the state are presented opportunities to re-think the way public services function in better, more appropriate ways for the twenty-first century. A great business analogy was mentioned to me recently by a Conservative MP: when private sector managers have to increase profits, cost-cutting is usually a necessary part of that, but by far the best route to increased profitability is in growth.

The same could be said for higher education. I would love to see a world where university degrees were free but we left that world behind us long ago. The present reality throws up difficult challenges but it also brings exciting opportunities, most obviously for the likes of Cambridge University.

Perhaps the Cambridge dons protesting today are so ensconced in their ivory tower that they just can't see how valuable that tower is.

Richard Cobden sought world peace and gave us French wine

2011-01-14T19:08:00.001Z

Richard Cobden, the nineteenth century independent MP, believed that free trade would nurture international peace. As an appreciative student of Cobden, that much I knew.

That in campaigning for free trade he enabled these shores to be flooded with an influx of French wine is a fact that I was unaware of.

Cobden's role in the 1860 Treaty of Commerce is mentioned by History & Policy's first policy paper of 2011, 'Wine, supermarkets and British alcohol policy', by Bath Spa historian James Nicholls. History & Policy's raison d'être is to connect historians to policymakers and the media, in order to inform contemporary debate with historical insight.

According to Nicholls, Cobden called on Gladstone, the Prime Minister, in September 1859, to propose that freer trade between Great Britain and France might defuse the "worrying evidence of mutual sabre-rattling."

Whether or not a French invasion was averted was in all likelihood more a result of other diplomatic plays than the reduction of tariffs. What cannot be doubted, however, is the effect that Cobden and the 1860 Treaty of Commerce had on British wine consumption.

The 'era of cheap Gladstone claret' witnessed imports of French wine climb from just 600,000 gallons in 1850 to a sobering [sic] seven million gallons in 1880. The Liberal Prime minister claimed, and philosopher Roger Scruton would affirm, that Britain became more "civilised."

That might be credible under the influence of rarefied Bordelaise tipples in Victorian England; on the back of 3-for-2 discounts of cheap Aussie plonk in a box in modern supermarkets, it feels less so. (Is this democratisation of wine 'progress'?)

That is the chief critique of Nicholl's essay, centring as it does on current debates about minimum unit alcohol pricing, public health and the tip in the balance between domestic and public boozing.

The ability of such history to tell today's politicians how to act on all of this is highly debatable. The current scenario sees the SNP in Scotland having adopted minimum alcohol pricing as policy, whereas both Labour (under the previous Government at least, heaven knows what Ed Miliband thinks now) and the Conservatives have neither welcomed it nor poured cold water over it.

Where Nicholls does have a pertinent point, and what this history does teach us, is that to impose restrictions on alcohol in this country you must take the moderate middle classes with you and not be seen to be discriminating against poorer drinkers at the same time. This is the biggest concern of David Cameron, says Nicholls. (The middle class point is ironic, given that we used to have an apparently over-consumptive middle class occupant of 10 Downing Street only a few years ago.)

Nicholls' essay might well give some useful anecdotes to the tune of 'calm down, we've been here before, dontcha know', but I do not believe it will change people's minds. It is, however, (and raise a glass here) a bright and sparkling little read - like a sumptuous half bottle of biscuity English bubbly - and it taught me something new.

If that isn't a good enough justification for the sort of 'relevance-driven' history that History & Policy promotes, I don't know what is.

Paul Collingwood: the legend who kept bars full

2011-01-06T00:01:00.004Z

This Ashes series was heralded with such excitement and expectation. It opened horribly, with England captain Andrew Strauss being dismissed by the third ball of the 1st Test.

Since that inauspicious start, and excepting the mishap in Perth, it has all seemed almost too easy, as England serenely paraded towards their first Ashes win Down Under since the 1980s. It seems astonishing to think it, but even Australia's 5-0 whitewash in 2006/07 was not as one-sided.

And as England appear to be calmly wrapping things up at the rickety marvel of the Sydney Cricket Ground, it feels not only a little bit anti-climactic. There is no nail-biting fifth day at The Oval for a South African born batsman to score his maiden Test century, as in 2005; nor a series-deciding victory at The Oval in which a South African born batsman scored his maiden Test century, as in 2009.

What is more, there is a decided note of melancholy. His decline as a Test batsman was all too evident. Yesterday was the last chance saloon for a man whose style at the crease (if 'style' were not a misnomer) has always had the ability to keep bars full, not empty them. Only a scratchy thirteen runs could be eked from a bat that sounded like tin; even the familiarly unattractive short back-lift leg-side shuffle was nowhere to be seen.

His position in the longest format of the game has always seemed vulnerable, in spite of such peaks as the crucial 72 minutes of batting at the Oval in 2005, which secured his MBE; the majestic 206 at Adelaide in 2006, which for brief passages of play actually looked fluid; his match-saving twin fifties in the Welsh capital in 2009, without which a tight Ashes series couldn't have been won; and least expected of all, the pearler that dismissed the brick wall of Michael Hussey this week. The only Durham man to score a Test match ton for England usually saved his best for Ashes contests.

He has not departed the world stage entirely - only in creams. Having led his country to their first world championship last year, he will continue as Twenty20 skipper. The World Cup is also just round the corner for England's highest-capped ODI player. IPL riches will follow again surely.

There has always been something very comforting about seeing his name on any team sheet, which is why today's news, as unsurprising as it was to hear, brings a twinge of sadness and regret.

He once said of batting: "You have to get yourself in and you have to scrap all the time for your runs, which I enjoy." I can't vouch that we always enjoyed it too, but we will dearly miss it.

Paul Collingwood

                    Mat    I  NO  Runs HS1  HS2  HS3     Ave 100  50   0

overall               67  114  10  4246 206  186  161   40.82  10  20   6

v Australia           15   26   1   770 206   96   74   30.80   1   4   1
v Bangladesh           2    3   0   148 145    3    0   49.33   1   0   1
v India                8   15   2   597 134* 108   63   45.92   2   2   1
v New Zealand          6   10   1   276  66   65   59   30.66   0   3   1
v Pakistan            10   17   1   632 186   96   82   39.50   1   3   1
v South Africa         7   12   2   576 135   91   71   57.60   1   4   0
v Sri Lanka            8   15   1   390  57   52   48   27.85   0   2   1
v West Indies         11   16   2   857 161  128  113   61.21   4   2   0

Control Orders abolition is timely boost for Nick Clegg

2011-01-02T19:58:00.002Z

After the kerfuffle - or in the Prime Minister's more colourful lexicon, the impending "f**king car crash" - a couple of months ago concerning control orders, it appears that they are going to be abolished after all.

I did not buy the Sunday Times today, chiefly because I overslept as a result of Apple's iPhone glitch, nor do I subscribe to the online version (though watch this space). So this news comes to me courtesy of David Blackburn at the Spectator's Coffee House blog. Astride an earnest photograph of the Liberal leader, Nick Clegg, is the headline: 'A pyrrhic victory for the Lib Dems?'

In November 2010, here and here, I made the case for abolishing control orders. In spite of the sincere wishes of the security services, they are an infringement of our fundamental civil liberties and an affront to the ancient British constitution.

There is a strong argument for their retention and one that I acknowledge wholly. One Conservative backbencher put it to me in no uncertain terms, that your everyday British citizen in the provinces could not spare a thought for elite metropolitan musings about habeas corpus and "ancient liberties". People want to know that they are safe and if the security services tell us that control orders make this country safer - especially at a time when the Prime Minister informs that "the terrorist threat is as serious as it has ever been" - then these instruments are a price worth paying. Tell them that they only affect nine people and the case will be, for most people, closed.

Nonetheless, I maintain my belief that an excessive erosion of our civil liberties is not the correct antidote to fighting terrorism. It is, as I wrote in November, a 'head versus heart' sort of call. My heart certainly desires the ending of control orders and on balance, my head does too.

Yet the most immediate point is that this is a timely boost for Nick Clegg, who ended 2010 at rock bottom personally and his party sinking ever lower, following the fallout over tuition fees and the disreputable sting of coalition ministers by Daily Telegraph journalists. Whilst control orders are also opposed by a number of senior Tories, they would probably have been retained by a majority Conservative Government. A rearguard attack from the likes of David Davis would have caused no damage to the Government in that scenario. He might perceive himself as a standard bearer for popular Tory disaffection but this is a policy on which he might find little favour in his party.

As voters go to the polls in the Oldham East & Saddleworth by-election, the scrapping of control orders is a valuable feather in the cap of the Deputy Prime Minister and further evidence that his Liberals are making a significant impact in Government. Prior to learning about the control orders situation, I made the prediction that the Liberals would gain the seat that they came within one hundred votes of winning in May. This latest policy victory only strengthens that prediction.

Back over at Coffee House, the caveat is inserted that this a 'pyrrhic victory' for Nick Clegg, as it contrasts painfully with the perceived 'loss' over tuition fees for full-time undergraduate UK students (to provide the full terminology).

I'm not so sure. The article rightly remarks that this "popular perception" of the HE issue is "erroneous". Nonetheless, to juxtapose it with control orders suggests that they are connected - for it to be 'Pyrrhic', after all, they would have to be, and the 'loss' of tuition fees would have to have been the cost of the 'win' of control orders.

Yet that is a semantically driven chicken-and-egg quibble, which I shan't dwell on. The main point is that voters are not going to put two-and-two together unless journalists wishing to construct a political narrative do it for them on a persistent basis.

The damage has been done on tuition fees and the upcoming White Paper is not going to make matters any better or worse. The Liberal contribution to more general HE reforms is significant - a majority Conservative Government would have, for instance, accepted Lord Browne's recommendation to remove the fee cap entirely. Regrettably, salient points such as that no longer have any chance of piercing the violent fog of student contention.

On control orders, however, Nick Clegg can point to a genuine victory and one that is very straightforward to communicate. A Conservative Government equals the retention of control orders. A Coalition Government equals the removal of control orders.

The Government's ability to sell its message has been pretty hit and miss since its formation last summer. Nevertheless, this is no hard sell.

As long as the media is willing to buy it, that is.

--------------------------------------------------------------

UPDATE: Michael White has posted this article too, which takes the same line as David Blackburn at the Speccie, i.e. that Clegg should not be claiming this as too much of a 'victory'.

His verdict is somewhat different, however, in that Clegg's reticence should stem from the horrible possibility that this all turns out badly in the form of another homegrown terrorist atrocity that could have been prevented by a control order.

I sympathise with all of that, as I write above, yet still agree with Shami Chakrabati's statement: "punishment without charge or trial is the hallmark of despots". And Michael White concedes, "it's hard to disagree with her."

Rambling political predictions for 2011

2011-01-02T16:21:00.000Z

Sky's Adam Boulton has published his 2010 predictions (he performed smugly well, as expected) and the latest set for 2011. Conservative blogger Tory Totty has taken these new questions and, like Boulton, is keeping her answers secret until this time next year.

Out of no disrespect to their secrecy, but in the spirit of transparency, I am going to pin my colours to the mast now, so here goes...

Who will win the Oldham East by-election on 13th January?

Liberal Democrats
Will there be a General Election?

Not in the UK
Who will be leader of Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats?

David Cameron, Ed Milliband (on life support) and Nick Clegg
Will Barack Obama come to the Royal Wedding ?

Yes
Will Catherine, nee Middleton, get pregnant ?

No (and a tedious question)
Who will be first minister of Scotland after the 5th May election?

Iain Gray, by a whisker
Will Britain vote for AV changing the way MPs are elected ?

No (but it will be extremely close)
Who will be the first Cabinet ministers to resign/be sacked? Who will replace them?

Almost as soon as David Laws' disciplinary review is completed, he shall return; I'm almost tempted to go out on a limb and say as Secretary of State for Health but it appears that in spite of the unpopularity of the coalition's (un-mandated) healthcare reforms, Lansley has full backing, so I'll say, with a heavy heart, in place of Ken Clarke
Will water cannon be used on demonstrators in mainland Britain ?

No
Will taxes go up or down in the Budget ?

Broadly neutral but if anything, marginally up for the wealthiest and down for the poorest
How long will the big freeze go on ?

Only heaven knows...
Will Ed Miliband get married ?

No. And who cares?
Will Gordon Brown leave parliament ?

No. The words "Ted" and "Heath" spring to mind.
Will David Cameron start tweeting ?

Definitely not.
Will the Chilcot Inquiry bring credible closure to Britain’s Iraq wounds?

No, regrettably
Will General Petraeus still command ISAF in Afghanistan ?

Yes
Will News Corporation buy all of BSkyB?

No, but a saving face compromise will be reached that gives News Corp greater control of BSkyB
Will there be military action against Iran ?

No (I pray)
Will Julian Assange end up in jail in the USA?
Sadly not
Will Peter Mandelson go on Strictly Come Dancing?

No
Will Russia or China be a bigger headache for ‘the West’?

China, as it continues to shirk its regional responsibilities (e.g. North Korea) and expand its rapacious search for commodities

Making sense of Giles Coren and why Australia exists

2010-12-30T12:46:00.007Z

I wince at cliches. Yet they are so useful. Toss in a few and before you know it you have bashed out half an article; if you're super savvy, a whole article.

Or, if you are Giles Coren, two whole articles.

First in the Daily Mail and secondly in the Mirror, the gregarious food writer delivers a breathtakingly coruscating jeremiad of not just Australian cricket but of Australia itself.

There are differences in style (gauged to hit varying degrees of knuckle-dragging) but both articles are nigh on identical in terms of content and reliance on cliche. We are not offered revolutionary insights that change the way we think about Australian cricket, unlike how Coren's pen skills have sometimes made us think about restaurants. Instead, the reader is bombarded from every angle by anti-Australian cliches, until by the end of it you feel like you have been on the receiving end of a literary Gatling gun.

There are the usual jokes about antipodean machismo, barbecues, lack of culture, convict history and beer that tastes of pee; about catabolic TV soap operas and not one, but two, Minogue sisters. Pushing even those Corenesque circumscriptions, there are gags about skin cancer, aboriginal apartheid, and domestic violence.

You could say, because both articles were probably knocked off in a matter of minutes and offer little beyond blunt billingsgate, it is lazy bigotry. As many Australians are saying, what a bludger. Ben English, writing in Australia's The Daily Telegraph, calls it "repressed resentment" (worth reading that one too - it's like holding Coren's writing up to a mirror and putting on it a wide-brimmed hat with dangling corks).

You could say that. You would, on a level, be correct. The writing is hideously, viciously gratuitous. But you'd be missing the point. Both articles are brilliant. The incessant assault stupefies you into a neanderthalic rage. It should be accompanied by a YouTube video showing Coren bludgeoning Ricky Ponting with a cricket bat. With every myopic barb you clamour for more blood. Another one-liner, Giles! With no opportunity for response, the attack is as ferociously one-sided as the current Ashes. It is painful to read, you don't want to enjoy it, you shouldn't enjoy it, but Coren whips you up into a mental state akin to.....well, akin to those cavemen Australians that he writes about and despises so much.

Come to think of it, I used to live in Australia (Manly, as you ask - and isn't it apt that there isn't a town called Womanly?). It became quite evident that if an Australian isn't taking the piss out of you, he doesn't like you. Is Coren paying our southern cousins a compliment...?

Digressions. Basically, you shouldn't like the articles but you do, thanks to Coren's colourful language and way with words. So do read them. Leave principles at the door (sorry, I suppose you've already done that by reading the Daily Mail and the Mirror) and, for a moment, have a laugh.

However, there is more to these articles than polemic. Two things actually - one that Coren will probably wrinkle his nose at and nod sagaciously in agreement; the other I don't suppose he could give a t*ss about but I'll mention anyway.

First, Giles Coren is a Times columnist. The imposition of a paywall in front of Times and Sunday Times online content has done a number of things but the most regrettable of all is that I no longer get to read Coren's columns unless I buy the newspaper (the same goes for Messrs Finkelstein and Aaronovitch, and Rachel Sylvester). Coren has said he supports the paywall but has openly directed readers towards outlets, such as the Mail, where he can be read for free (see Twitter here). These two articles about Australia would not have appeared in the Times - probably for editorial reasons more than anything else, but perhaps also because Coren really wanted people to read them? They are the sort of articles that lend themselves perfectly to viral internet spread, a phenomenon now closed off to Times content with its little (£) caveats.

Secondly, the title of Coren's piece of the Daily Mail closes in the question: "just what is the point of Australia?"

Well?

History lesson: its primary purpose in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (for white British people, not the natives who had inhabited terra australis for centuries) was a depository for criminals. Ah-ha! A cliche! Yes, but true. It gradually became then a place for surplus, non-criminal populations from these isles (and post-WW2, fleeing European migrants). It was not principally intended, unlike other British colonies or imperial possessions (e.g. Caribbean, India, Hong Kong or Gibraltar), for strategic economic or political designs on trade routes, natural resources or military significance. It was an empty desert with a fertile-but-fragile littoral fringe to which excess people could first be sent and second be induced to settle and eke out some farming.

Over time, Australia developed stable institutions and made the straightforward transition to an independent democracy - a republic in all but name. People continue to flock there, not least from these shores, thanks to its laid back feel and good climate.

Yet that still doesn't explain what Australia is for. Economics, however, do, and they explain that Australia is for one thing above all: the exportation of natural resources. It is true that services comprise two-thirds of Australian GDP and that one of its biggest companies is media conglomerate News Corp (Mr Coren's employer, no less). Yet any country with a couple of brain cells to rub together (cliche, acknowledged) can create a services sector. What any country cannot do is possess the rich natural resources that Australia does and it is these resources that Australia peddles on world markets. And if you don't trade, you fade.

Agriculture and mining in Australia make up 10 per cent of GDP but a whopping 57 per cent of exports. Australia is the world's third largest supplier of uranium, iron ore and diamonds; the second largest producer of nickel, gold and zinc; and the greatest exporter of coal. The country produces 95 per cent of the world's opals and possesses significant interests in natural gas, bauxite, copper and silver. Not thought of as an oil nation, it is also the twenty-eighth largest producer of petroleum. As a country with wide open spaces and millions of sheep, there's a fairly large amount of wool going around too.

Most of this goes to China, which is Australia's biggest two-way trading partner and the owner of a sizeable wedge of Australian debt.

China's role in Australia is a bastardisation of its relationship to the USA and to Africa. Its massive trade surplus and financial heft are propping up Australia's flatlining, resource-driven economy; whilst its voracious appetite for raw materials is feeding on the continent from inside-out.

Today, the Chinese defence minister announced that China is preparing for armed conflict "in every direction" in order to defend its interests - the chief of which is continued economic growth. To achieve this, it needs a continued supply of raw materials.

In years to come, nations may come to blows over resources as they become scarcer and people in the developing world (particularly Chinese people) become more plentiful and more wealthy.

A couple of aircraft carrier squadrons off the coast of Darwin sounds ridiculous now but then again, a couple of months ago so did two Ashes victories by an innings, nearly 600 runs by Alastair Cook, and a 90 m.p.h. Tim Bresnan ripping through the Australian top-order.

And if all that's about as gratifyingly heavy for you this side of 31st December as a sack of Australian coal, pour a stiff drink (it's after midday) and read Mr Coren.

Paris introduit l'interdiction 4x4 - pourquoi ne pas l'essayer à Londres?

2010-12-29T17:04:00.001Z

Outre-Manche, les Français ne peuvent plus nous rivaliser avec les vins et les fromages, mais quand il s'agit de transport et de l'environnement, ils restent à la tête du peloton (OK, OK, et laissant de côté les bien-pensants de la Scandinavie et le nord de l'Europe).

Leurs chemins de fer publics fonctionnent mieux et plus vite et ils sont moins coûteux pour le consommateur. En termes de densité des chemins, la France a 497 mètres pour 1.000 habitants, comparativement à 276m du Royaume-Uni. En France, près d'un tiers des voyages sont à pied, par rapport aux personnes ici, qui ne marche d'un huitième du temps et conduire une voiture deux fois sur trois (ce qui dans un pays moins dispersé et plus densément peuplé) .

Maintenant les gaulois prennent des mesures pour interdire les voitures les plus polluantes des centres-villes. Signalé dans Le Monde, une demi-douzaine autorités municipales, comprisant Paris, Lyon et Clermont, sera à partir de 2012 refuser l'acces de 4x4 et certains vieux véhicules diesel comme ils ont créé des "zones d'action prioritaires pour l'air" (ZAPA). Selon le ministre de l'environnement de la France, plus de 160 villes à travers l'Europe ont déjà mis en place des expériences similaires.

Le procès est typique du golfe dans la gouvernance environnementale entre le Royaume-Uni et le reste de l'Europe. La mentalité plus dirigeiste sur le continent, notamment en France, dit "pas d'histoires". Par exemple: besoin d'une belle, droite, ligne ferroviaire à grande vitesse entre Paris et Marseille, Monsieur le Président? Simple... Ici, je vous presente, le TGV!

Le maire de Londres, Boris Johnson, ne rêve pas de mettre en œuvre une telle interdiction 4x4 dans certaines parties de notre capitale, en dépit de la santé et les avantages environnementaux qu'elle pourrait apporter.

French towns ban most polluting cars from town centres

2010-12-29T16:48:00.000Z

Across the Channel, the French may no longer be able to rival British wine and cheese but when it comes to transport and the environment they remain à la tête du peloton (okay, okay, and leaving aside the green-fingered do-gooders of Scandinavia and northern Europe).

Their publicly owned railways function better and faster and are cheaper to the consumer. In terms of railway density, France has 497 metres of track per 1,000 inhabitants, compared to the UK's 276m. The French conduct nearly a third of journeys on foot, compared to people in England & Wales, who only walk one-eighth of the time and drive a car two times out of three (this in a less dispersed, more densely populated, country). Apparently our trains do offer better Wi-Fi (if you coughed, don't worry, that's a perfectly natural reaction).

Now Gallic green-thinkers are taking steps to outlaw the most polluting cars from town centres. Reported in Le Monde, half a dozen municipal authorities, including Paris, Lyon and Clermont, will from 2012 refuse access to certain 4x4's and old diesel vehicles as they set up "les zones d'action prioritaires pour l'air" (ZAPA). According to France's environment minister, more than 160 towns across Europe have already put in place similar experiments.

The trial typifies the gulf in environmental governance between the UK and the rest of Europe. The more dirigeiste mentality on the Continent, particularly in France, just goes and does things. For instance: need a nice, straight, high-speed railway line between Paris and Marseilles, Monsieur President? Straightforward.

The present Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has not just a mere modicum of John Bull about him and wouldn't dream of implementing any such 4x4 ban in parts of our capital, regardless of the health and environmental benefits it could bring.

On the Coalition's first Christmas, some advice from Sir Winston Churchill

2010-12-24T15:25:00.002Z

It is Christmas, so I am home with the family in sylvan, snowy Sussex. For the next few days, I will be living out a life of repetitive, traditional bliss. Ah! a chocolate. Another glass of Chasse-Spleen 1983? It would be a crime not to. Darling, do have some more turkey, it will only go to the dog. If you insist.

Another Christmas tradition is to peruse my parents' bookshelves for something to lose myself in, beside the drawing room fireplace, in front of the tree. This year, I am re-reading Churchill's history of the Second World War: a collection of six volumes so imperious in composition that it garnered him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953. The opening paragraphs of Chapter II in the first volume, The Gathering Storm (1948), deserve to be quoted at length. To contextualise, Churchill was at the time a Liberal MP and Secretary of State for the Dominions and Colonies.

The party stresses which the Irish Settlement had created inside Mr. Lloyd George's Coalition were growing with the approach of an inevitable General Election. The issue arose whether we should go to the country as a Coalition Government or break up beforehand. It seemed more in accordance with the public interest and the decencies of British politics that parties and Ministers who had come through so much together and bore a mass of joint responsibilities should present themselves unitedly to the nation. In order to make this easy for the Conservatives, who were by far the larger and stronger party, the Prime Minister and I had written earlier in the year offering to resign our offices, and give our support from a private station to a new Government to be formed by Mr. Austen Chamberlain. The Conservative leaders, having considered this letter replied firmly that they would not accept that sacrifice from us and that we must all stand or fall together. This chivalrous attitude was not endorsed by their followers in the party, which now felt itself strong enough to resume undivided power in the State.

By an overwhelming vote the Conservative Party determined to break with Lloyd George and end the National Coalition Government. The Prime Minister resigned that same afternoon. In the morning we had been friends and colleagues of all these people. By nightfall they were our party foes, intent on driving us from public life.

The passage follows a chapter on the disastrous fallout of the Treaties of Versailles, Trianon and St-Germain, the fallacy of German (or in Chuchillian parlance, "Prussian") reparations and the failure to stop rearmament. Reading it now, it wrenches you abruptly from a dry history lesson to the immediacy of Liberal-Conservative coalition politics. The relevance of Churchill's prose is breathtaking.

There are, of course, dissimilarities - not least that our present Prime Minister is not a womanising Welshman, nor a Liberal or, for that matter, a Whig (careful now, Mr Lawson). Perhaps, I trivialise. Yet in a week that David Cameron has given his clearest endorsement yet of some kind of electoral pact in 2015, and the Government campaign in Oldham East & Saddleworth leans weightily in the direction of a Liberal Democrat gain, it is worth highlighting for its mere message that 'we have been here before'. Not just in the mundane 'Liberals always split' narrative that we are used to reading, but from a very personal, involved viewpoint about what it is like to operate at the heart of a political coalition.

At its most fundamental, Government at the top succeeds and falls on personalities. For illustration, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were co-authors of New Labour in Opposition and co-practitioners of New Labour in Government, yet as a result of their irreconcilable personal mindsets the TB-GB's paralysed their administrations (even after Blair departed, stage right).

One month ago, Sir John Major urged the sort of accommodation that Churchill suggests ought to have taken place in 1922. It is encouraging that the present incumbent isn't deaf to such advice from two distinguished former Prime Ministers.

It is traditional at this time of year to have to spend time with friends and family you rarely see, for better or for worse. Sometimes this is a joyous occasion, yet for others it is one fraught with frayed tempers and stressful endurance.

The coalition family is spending its first Christmas together, and this week internal bickering behind family members' backs threatened to provoke terminal breakdown. Instead, that family is sticking together. They don't all like each other and they certainly don't always agree. Yet they have chosen this course willingly and for honourable, upright reasons, they shall see it through. If that culminates in an agreement in 2015, however formal or informal, it will not be for lack of contemplation.

It is very evident that this Prime Minister possesses the "chivalrous attitudes" that others in the Westminster playground appear to lack. Dr Cable might be shorn of a couple of baubles this Christmas, but it is the Barclay brothers who will be receiving a lump of coal.

The Conservative Party can be the Natural Party of Coalition Government

2010-12-24T01:24:00.000Z

Conservatives claim that theirs is the ‘natural party of government’. On top of that, I argue that the party should also be considered the ‘natural party of coalition’, based on its diverse philosophical heritage, which has engendered an instinct that is pragmatic and non-ideological.

Let's look at Edmund Burke - was he a Conservative? Lord Acton, the Liberal historian, thought him one of the three greatest liberals, alongside Gladstone and Macaulay. In Das Kapital, Karl Marx branded him “an out-and-out vulgar bourgeois” and criticised his hypocrisy in supporting the American revolutionaries but attacking the French Revolution. Sir Winston Churchill summed up Burke’s polysemy when he wrote, “On the one hand he is revealed as a foremost apostle of Liberty, on the other as the redoubtable champion of Authority.”

Strictly speaking, our contemporary panegyrics to Edmund Burke are anachronisms. He was neither a Conservative (such a party did not exist), nor a Tory. Burke was a Whig and, by extension of his fervent advocacy for Roman Catholic emancipation and free trade, indubitably no friend of the Tories, generally ardent Anglicans and protectionists.

Yet Burke should be considered a founding father of modern Conservatism precisely because of his apparent contradictions. To those who believe that politics should be about belief systems strictly adhered to, such as Karl Marx, Burke was indeed a hypocrite. However, Burke did have beliefs, as innate to him as any Conservative today, centred on freedom, responsibility and community. That he felt able to apply these instincts to the American Revolution but not the French is a mark of his pragmatic appreciation of context. The revolutionaries in France might well have set to their task with liberté, égalité et fraternité in mind but the cause descended into murder, mayhem and misery, amidst which disappeared those virtues evident in the Thirteen Colonies a decade before.

In the North American revolutionaries, Edmund Burke saw a rejection of tyranny; contrariwise, in the Jacobins of the 1790s, terrorizing ideologues. It is via that anti-dogmatic streak in Burke that we can discover our most authentic link to his tenebrous thinking.

The policies of political parties ebb and flow yet certain instincts remain the same. It is possible to remain true to Conservative instincts – such as freedom, individual responsibility and community – yet still be able to approach policymaking pragmatically, flexibly and openly, in the national interest. It was Burke again, who said, “All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.”

Genuine conservatives are not ideologues. Conservatives do not possess any scopic Weltanschauung, instructing them how to re-order the world as presented to them. Lord Hailsham, wrote in The Conservative Case (1959): “Conservatism is not so much a philosophy as an attitude, a constant force, performing a timeless function in the development of a free society, and corresponding to a deep and permanent requirement of human nature itself.”

Political parties steeped in ideological dogma are congenitally ill suited to the purlieus of coalition politics. The “compromise and barter” that Burke spoke of does not come naturally to them.

“Compromise” (or “consensus”) has been a word besmeared in right-wing politics since the 1970s. Margaret Thatcher said, “To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies.” Perhaps such a stance was necessary for her time. Perhaps it was even a pragmatic reaction to the discord of her time. To contemporaries of the late 1970s, the ‘Butskellite’ consensus of the post-war period did appear to have run its course. Nonetheless, some of the inimical, unintended consequences of the 1980s may have been averted – or at least mitigated – by a modicum of consensus building.

Come what may, Burke’s “compromise and barter” is palpably valuable here and now. In order to provide this country with the strong government needed to impel and sustain economic recovery and deficit reduction, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats boldly came coalesced into a remarkable accommodation, in the national interest. Neither party could get everything that it wanted. The Coalition Agreement, excogitated with astonishing alacrity, is the result of “compromise and barter.”

The Conservative Party's standing as the ‘natural party of coalition’ is not only based on the recognition that politics is “founded on compromise and barter.” It is also based on the party's diverse political heritage. This summer gone, ConservativeHome, a right-wing political website, asked new Conservative MPs to answer a short questionnaire, including naming their political heroes. Their responses roamed freely through eras and philosophies: from Edmund Burke to William Wilberforce to Benjamin Disraeli; from Winston Churchill to Rab Butler; from Iain Macleod to Margaret Thatcher.

One answer, above all, was worthy of more detailed scrutiny. Steve Baker, MP for Wycombe, named Richard Cobden as his political hero, because he “gave up his business prospects to further the philosophy of freedom in the general interest. He was principled, pragmatic and yet thoughtful.” Those who know their 19^th century history will recall Cobden as the radical Member of Parliament for Stockport, to whom Sir Robert Peel, “without scruple...attribute[d] the success” of the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, beyond any other individual, including himself. Richard Cobden was most certainly no Tory or Conservative. He was a tireless advocate of free trade, a policy with which few Conservatives now would disagree. Then, however, the issue of free trade split a nascent Conservative Party between old protectionist Tories, the country bumpkin party of yesteryear, and the liberal conservative Peelites. The protectionist majority were the direct antecedent of today’s Conservative Party – an unbroken corporate lineage runs from Lord George Bentinck, through Benjamin Disraeli, all the way to David Cameron. The rump of more liberal Peelite Tories, which included William Gladstone, eventually merged with Radical and Independent Irish MPs to form the Liberal Party. To which group do we owe the greatest philosophical debt? Entire theses have been devoted to that question, but I hope that you will appreciate my basic point. We are not merely a product of the Conservative Party but also a product of Whig, Radical and Liberal thought.

Conservatives are not only sharing power and office with the Liberal Democrats; they also share origins. The two parties have gone their various ways in the past 150 years but I believe that they still share those core instincts of freedom, responsibility and community. The example of Richard Cobden and free trade demonstrates how particular policies can seem anathema to a political party in one era and fundamental in another – yet instincts remain the same. Compromising and building consensus does not mean a dereliction of principles – it means applying those principles to the needs of your time.

A broad philosophical heritage and the un-ideological, pragmatic, conservative instincts of freedom, responsibility and community can cross partisan divides. The time will come again when the Conservative Party can govern on its own. Yet if that is not the case in May 2015, and once more, we are faced with necessary “compromise and barter”, then again the party must not be troubled – for the Conservative Party is the natural party of coalition.

Rambler Word Cloud

2010-12-23T17:38:00.000Z

The Daily Telegraph just refuses to understand its irresponsibility

2010-12-22T13:04:00.002Z

The Daily Telegraph's latest invidious political intervention is both embarrassing for the Liberal Democrat ministers involved (but not shocking) and another sad indictment on what is left of what is erroneously referred to still as our 'quality' press.

Their only motive can be to injure (and so kill off) the Coalition. Why else reveal in an underhand fashion what we all know to be so? Ministers do, have done, and always will disagree privately. It shows poor judgement to mouth off to strangers about internal Government politics but the predictably shrill reaction has princpially addressed Government 'splits', not the behaviour of Messrs Davey, Moore, Webb and Cable.

The search for internal splits in this Liberal-Conservative coalition is laughable. For who can remember a Government more united in opinion, direction and purpose than this? The Labour Governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown fail utterly on that count, as did John Major's before them and Margaret Thatcher's. It seems counter-intuitive, but coalitions can forge stronger bonds than single parties, by virtue of shared pains in reaching an accord.

What this little (soon to be as irrelevant as One Direction) episode brings to my mind, however, is less about Government unity (it remains very strong) than the rabid, vicious and insatiable appetite for criticism of politicians by the media and the public, regardless of truths and good intentions. It is criticism for criticism's sake; destructive and irresponsible.

It calls to mind the words of Sir Robert Peel, writing to the free trade campaigner Richard Cobden, shortly after the repeal of the Corn Laws in June 1846:

Such a position as mine entails the severest sacrifices. The strain on the mental power is far too severe... But the world - the great and small vulgar - is not of this opinion. I am sorry to say they do not and cannot comprehend the motives which influence the best actions of public men. They think that public men change their course for corrupt motives, and their feeling is so predominant that the character of public men is injured, and their practical authority and influence impaired.

The Liberal Democrat and Conservative politicians who have joined together in Government have done so against many of their insincts, enduring "the severest sacrifices", because it is the right thing to do. Their actions and private thoughts since do not betray "corrupt motives" but the desire to work together in the national interest.

The Daily Telegraph's reaction to this is to injure the arrangement and impair its practical authority and influence. In these present circumstances, it is an arrangement far more conducive to sorting out our country's problems than a minority Conservative Government. We either like that, or we grin and bear it.

Regrettably, it is something that decision makers at the DT, in Peel's words, "do not and cannot comprehend".

Bad tuition fees research obscures the bigger higher education debate. Again.

2010-12-07T18:20:00.002Z

The most depressing thing about the higher education debate in this country is how woefully uninformed the public is.

The NUS and corollary protesting groups focuses their campaigning almost exclusively on one issue - tuition fees for full-time undergraduate domestic students - when 40 per cent of its students (and by logical extension of that, many of its own members) study part-time so will benefit hugely from the Government's scrapping of up-front fees for part-time students.

Yet they can't even be trusted to represent one issue properly. First, the NUS has been using language that deliberately instils misguided fear in students' minds, for instance by only framing the increase as fees of £9,000, whereas the Government is actually increasing fees to £6,000 and permitting universities to charge up to £9,000 in exceptional circumstances and under strict access criteria. Secondly, the NUS and certain Labour MPs have been describing the £9,000 fee level as a 300% increase, which it isn't (it is less than 190%). That's just sloppy maths.

What is abominable maths and far more invidious is the habit of several organisations in recent years to publish shambolicly amateur market research that claims to reveal what future students would or would not pay for a degree. The NUS has been guilty of this in the past and the latest culprit is Aimhigher, the organisation that runs schemes to encourage poorer students to apply to universities.

Reported today by the BBC, Aimhigher claims that less than a third of young people would be willing to pay £9,000 per year in fees. Give them their due, they have at least been asking future students as opposed to current students - the error committed by most previous surveys. Yet they have not framed it as a proper purchasing choice. As I've already stated the deficiencies of such studies enough before (see here and here), I won't rehearse the arguments, other than repeat that if organisations are going to produce these surveys and put them into the public domain, they need to be done properly and according to robust methodologies. Publishing this sort of 'research' is plainly irresponsible.

Aimhigher, which has received £250 million of funding since 2008, is being cut next year. This has, of course, attracted criticism but it shouldn't matter when you consider that a key part of the Government's reforms is to do away with Offa's minimum bursary requirement and have universities go on the road to low aspiration and low attainment schools.

It is yet another important part of the package that is being drowned out by the shrill, myopic obsession with tuition fees for full-time undergraduate UK students.

History shows the English state has always meddled with universities

2010-12-05T17:15:00.000Z

In the medieval period there did not exist what we today would refer to as the modern nation state. There was a relative lack of centralised political and administrative control. Hence it was possible, according to Notker Hammerstein, for universities ‘to elude and frequently to avoid...government ordinances.’

Yet though the universities possessed a great deal of autonomy over their internal and external affairs this never meant total freedom from state interference. Just because the state did not interfere at any one point in time does not mean that it couldn’t if it chose to do so.

The post-Reformation Tudor and Stuart periods witnessed a dramatic increase in state interference in higher education, primarily as part of the state’s wider social policy. This interference was usually driven by what the purpose or function of the university was deemed to be at the time; the state then exploited that purpose or function to serve its own policies. Whilst this could be seen as a narrow and insufficient representation of the history of universities in general, the themes it contains do reappear regularly throughout history.

Hugh Kearney tells us that on the eve of the English Reformation the universities of Oxford and Cambridge ‘provided the means for educating a clerical intelligentsia.’ Despite the religious upheavals of the sixteenth century those ancient universities retained their role of training clergymen, only now it was for the Church of England and not the Catholic Church. Well into the seventeenth century this remained the universities’ primary function and Francis Bacon described them in 1605 as effectively ‘professional institutions.’ Richard Tyler has found that 41.3 per cent of Cambridge students took orders between 1590 and 1640. The universities, of course, were not just seminaries. In the decades following the English Reformation, sons of the gentry began to go up to Oxford or Cambridge in increasing numbers, meaning that by the 1630s there were not only many more undergraduates than there had been in medieval times but over half were laymen. Nevertheless, the universities’ primary practical function was still to train the clergy, and it is for that reason that the Tudor court had become much more closely involved in university affairs.

The Elizabethan settlement of 1559, amongst other things, gave the Crown absolute authority over both of the universities. The universities’ colleges were self-governing institutions and in that respect they remained autonomous. However, the state could, and did, interfere on a number of levels to achieve its aim of enforcing religious orthodoxy.

As the universities were the training grounds for future clergymen it seemed appropriate for the Crown to ensure that they were being led and taught by the correct people, in the desired fashion. Religious sectarianism was a significant threat to social order. This was all too apparent in light of unrest on the continent, such as the Anabaptist uprisings in Münster over 1534-5. Kett’s sectarian rebellion in Norfolk in 1549 was a catalyst for a greater clampdown on religious dissent. In this historical context it is not hard to understand state interference in higher education as defending social order and religious orthodoxy and not as an attack on the universities’ autonomy.

John Whitgift, 1530-1604

The munificent donation of Regius chairs in 1540 had come with the condition that political and religious conformity was adhered to; Trinity College, Cambridge, and its sister college Christ Church, Oxford (both established in 1546), were also noteworthy royal endowments. The effects of royal patronage are clearly evident in the career of John Whitgift, who became Lady Margaret’s Professor of Divinity at Cambridge in 1563. His strict denunciations of religious dissent and harsh treatment of Puritanical belief earned him praise and enthusiastic support from the Crown and he was soon appointed Master of Pembroke Hall and then Trinity College, a very prestigious position. In 1570 he introduced new university statutes that imposed a curriculum heavily favouring court authority and religious orthodoxy and his subsequent esteem was so high with Queen Elizabeth that he became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1583. Although the occasional royal university appointment did not drastically alter the autonomous running of the universities, over time the government could manipulate the university’s direction. In the second half of the sixteenth century this was most certainly in the direction of religious orthodoxy as, according to state papers, the Crown put pressure on dissenters ‘from every direction.’ A Crown candidate replaced a well-known Puritan at St John’s, Cambridge, in 1596, and the Queen interceded no less than four times between January and May 1597 alone in proposing preferred individuals for college fellowships.

William Laud, 1573-1645

Royal interference only increased under the Stuarts, and both James I and Charles I would often stay in Woodstock in order to be closer to Oxford. Crown patronage – in return for obedience – also continued in the first half of the seventeenth century. However, it was not until the rise of William Laud, appointed Chancellor of Oxford in 1629, and subsequently Archbishop of Canterbury from 1633, that state interference increased to sixteenth century levels. Like in Elizabethan times the targets were religious non-conformists and the objective was to instate social and religious order. Laud put a renewed emphasis on the universities’ role in clerical training and he attempted to enforce submission to Arminian theology and an absolute monarchy. About Oxford he wrote in 1634: ‘This work I hope God will so bless as that it may much improve the honour and good government of that place, a thing very necessary in this life both for Church and Commonwealth; since so many young gentlemen and others of all ranks and conditions have their breeding for the public in that seminary.’ Of the larger Oxford colleges only Queen’s and Exeter avoided Laud’s interference in academic appointments during the 1630s and similar acts were carried out in Cambridge. Similar kinds of state patronage even continued under Oliver Cromwell’s rule in the 1650s, as the Lord Protector made his chaplain, John Owen, Dean of Christ Church, and his physician, Jonathan Goddard, Warden of Merton.

Paul Gerbod has claimed that during this period, governments often assumed the part of a ‘teacher-state’, impressing on universities a ‘uniform educational system in line with their political or philosophical aims.’ This view is questionable. Other than on rare occasions when university curricula were directly tampered with, such as under Whitgift in the 1570s and Archbishop Laud in the 1630s, the state did not assume direct control of university teaching. On a day-to-day administrative and intellectual basis the universities remained autonomous. Real power, after all, lay not in the federal university body but in the individual colleges, which were largely materially and intellectually independent.

It was in the indirect influence of royal patronage and endowments that state interference was most felt. There is an appropriate distinction to be made here, if perhaps merely theoretical, and it does corroborate Gordon Graham’s declaration that regardless of any notion of autonomy, the universities were not free from state interference. For Graham is not saying that the universities have always been at the behest of the state, like some sort of public institution. His statement accepts that university autonomy, ‘whatever [it] may mean’, does exist and has existed. What Graham does acknowledge is that in spite of any such autonomy the universities have never been totally free from the possibility of state interference.

In the past the state has tended to interfere in university affairs in order to achieve a political or social objective. The state’s capacity to do this has always been constrained by the university’s own capacity – in other words, its institutional and educational role within society. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the universities were still acting primarily as theological training schools for the Church of England, the parameters existed for the government to use the universities as part of its wider policy of maintaining social order and religious orthodoxy during those turbulent years. The state’s grip on religious dissent tightened after the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 as a series of measures (informally referred to as the ‘Clarendon Code’ due to their not altogether precise association with the Earl of Clarendon, the king’s chief minister) were enacted in order to strengthen the authority of the Church of England.

After the Glorious Revolution of 1688 England entered an age of relative religious and political stability. It was no longer imperative for the state to attempt to influence university affairs in the way it had done since the English Reformation. Moreover, the rise of the lay intellectual within the universities and the simultaneous decline in influence of the clergy as England entered a more secular age meant that the universities were not as useful a means of social control as they had previously been.

Harold Perkin has claimed that ‘between 1850 and 1930 there took place in England a revolution in higher education...nothing less than the transformation of the university from a marginal institution, an optional finishing school for young gentlemen, into the central power house of modern industrial society.’

In combination with professionalisation, universities became ‘the normal route to high status and income.’ After 1945 the British postwar settlement, which included the construction of the welfare state, embraced grand aims for greater equality of opportunity and fairness in society. If universities could function as agents of social mobility then they could usefully be incorporated within government policy to achieve the above aims. Universities, so the thinking went, should become more open to all members of society, regardless of age, race or gender. What followed were vast increases in state funding from the University Grants Committee (UGC) under the chairmanship of Sir Keith Murray from 1953-63. In 1956 the UGC capital programme was £3.8 million; by 1963 it was £30 million, with the promise of even more to come. During this period seven new universities were added along with the severance of Dundee from St Andrews and Newcastle from Durham. Student numbers had similarly mushroomed. The higher education policies of the 1960s Labour governments under Harold Wilson, most notably the creation of the Open University in 1969 (which aimed to provide distance-learning to anyone who desired it) and the binary system of universities and polytechnics, the latter to offer more applied, vocational learning to a meet the growing demand for higher (or further) education.

Here, then, is evidence of changing contexts and changing functions. The postwar context was one in which British governments proclaimed a far more welfarist and interventionist set of social policy objectives than before. Functionally, universities were now viewed as agents of social mobility, and therefore appropriate policy tools for achieving policy objectives. Like in my case study, the British government had not set out directly to threaten university autonomy and, so much as they could, the universities retained a great deal of independence. This occurred despite a new, twentieth-century version of state patronage – the significantly higher state funding for higher education, which after the Second World War represented over half of the universities’ income. When a lack of funding began to impose limits to university autonomy in the 1970s this was due to exogenous economic shocks that the government had to weather via severe public expenditure cuts – it was not part of any deliberate strategy to interfere in university affairs.

The universities have always assumed nominal autonomy in their internal affairs. However, whenever the state has needed to utilize the universities as a political device it has been able to do so through a combination of two policy instruments: patronage and funding. No matter how much universities in Britain have protested their autonomy, whether in the early modern period or since the Second World War, state interference has been inevitable. Paul Gerbod makes the following conclusion:

No political system, no matter how democratic, could really accept the total autonomy of the universities. Though they did retain a certain independence because of traditions often going back to the Middle Ages – that is to an age when universities were organically linked to the Western Christian Church – the universities were compelled to accept under duress more or less severe restrictions on their material and intellectual independence.

The crucial point to be made is that the universities have accepted ‘restrictions on their material and intellectual independence’ – they have not suffered total loss of material and intellectual independence. Where autonomy has been curbed it has been restrictive, not destructive, of academic independence. It has been part of pragmatic state policies. The parameters for this interaction have changed as society has changed because universities have always been, and always will be, reflections of the society they inhabit. Their functions follow society’s needs (whether clerical in the Tudor and Stuart era, or more technical and professional in our contemporary era – or, indeed, as agents of social mobility).

The state has always attempted to interfere in higher education in England and it shall continue to do so, as long as the universities and their role in society are conducive to meeting the policy objectives of the day.

For Scotland's sake, the Daylight Savings Bill cannot win

2010-12-03T19:16:00.005Z

Another hurdle jumped and there is light at the end of the tunnel for Rebecca Harris' Daylight Savings Bill, which today passed its Second Reading in the House of Commons by 92 votes to 10. Unusually for Private Member's Bills, it shall advance to committee stage. Also unusually, it has garnered wide and vocal support. For reasons of constitutional harmony, however, I caution its advance.

There are two notable observations to be made about the vote itself, then I will come to my concerns.

First, barely one hundred were present because Parliament does not usually sit on a Friday. Most MPs spend Fridays (and Saturdays) working in their respective constituencies. So it is impossible to gauge true levels of support for this Bill, with the vast majority of MPs away. One backbench Tory MP told me: "on balance I am inclined to vote for it but I have to put my constituents first." How many had similar commitments but thought otherwise? We don't know.

Secondly, and linked to the first point, most Members present at the debate represent English constituencies, and a great amount of those not northern constituencies. Barely any Scottish MPs attended, which if it weren't for the inclement weather we have and the desire to get back home in good time, would strike me as odd because it is the position of Scotland (geographically and politically) on which this policy shall succeed or fail. Northern Ireland is similarly affected but it is not as politically prominent at Westminster.

Rebecca Harris (C, Castle Point) said in support of her Private Member's Bill that it "does not enforce an immediate change" but asks "that the government should take an objective, informed decision based on the best available evidence." The usual arguments in favour, such as a reduction in evening road accidents, more tourism and lower energy use were trotted out by supportive Members.

Edward Davey (LD, Kingston & Surbiton), the Minister for Employment Relations, Consumer and Postal Affairs, opposed the Bill on behalf of the Government, making the crucial point about the change's impact in Scotland:

"Under the proposals, sunset in Edinburgh in mid-October would move from 6.15 pm to 7.15 pm, but sunrise would not be until 8.45 am, and on new year’s eve, it would not get light in Lerwick until after 10 am, as I said earlier. It is therefore unsurprising that the Scottish Government are nervous of such a change, and that they have said that they would not want it imposed on their population."

My greatest fear is that imposing this change on the UK as a whole, as the failed experiment between 1968 and 1971 did, will ultimately lead to Holyrood declaring unilateral horological independence. Mr Davey also alluded to this possibility.

We should remember that Scotland is not only further north than the rest of the United Kingdom, but quite far west too—surprisingly, Edinburgh is west of Bristol—which means that, come winter, it has relatively little daylight, in fact about eight hours, and that that light comes later. It is possible in principle to have two UK time zones—one for Scotland, which could perhaps include Northern Ireland, and one for England and Wales—but we should rule out that option on such a relatively small island as ours. We should remain a United Kingdom.

We must remain a United Kingdom. I wrote earlier this week about how in 2004, the votes of Scottish MPs imposed top-up tuition fees on the graduates of English universities, against the wishes of English MPs. The complaint works both ways. The time change might sound like a good weeze to the MPs in the south of England who turned up today to vote for the Bill, such as Andrew Tyrie (C, Chichester), Simon Hughes (LD, Bermondsey & Old Southwark), Karen Buck (Lab, Westminster North) and Caroline Lucas (Green, Brighton Pavilion), but their colleagues in the north have very real concerns.

Angus Brendan MacNeil (SNP, Na h-Eileanan an Iar) pointed out that "more electricity would be used on darker mornings" in Scotland. Furthermore, Dr Eilidh Whiteford (SNP, Banff & Buchan) made the smart case that Scottish farmers are "less opposed to the measure than they were 40 years ago [because] they now have heating and lighting in their steadings [which] rather undermines the carbon saving argument." Two Liberal Democrat MPs, Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) and Alan Reid (Argyll & Bute) also spoke out against the Bill.

A pair of Scottish MPs did surprise me by voting in favour of the measure - David Hamilton (Lab, Midlothian) and Gordon Banks (Lab, Ochill & South Perthshire) - as well as Naomi Long, the Alliance MP from Belfast East. Mr Hamilton said he was approaching it "with an open mind." Both Mrs Long and Mr Banks spoke fairly of wanting to make better informed decisions based on proper evidence.

Until recently, I couldn't care much either way. Even now, I am willing to see what sort of arguments for and against are thrown up by a report, and to make a decision on that. Yet as things stand, this seems to me a dangerously unnecessary move. It has been tried before and this is the eighth occasion since the 1970s that someone has tried to revive it - all previous attempts ended in failure. If this attempt is successful, I worry that it would be another step down the road to the breakup of the United Kingdom. It would be another message of disunity sent north of the border - a selfish and antagonistic act inflicted on the Scots, on behalf of English and Welsh MPs.

The SNP are prone to nonsensical shortbread hyperbole (see the comments of Peter Wishart in my article on Wednesday) but Angus MacNeil hit the right tone today when he said:

"The progress of this bill is literally a wake-up call to the prospect of dark mornings for everyone north of Manchester, and has been pushed through by MPs from the south with no regard to the impact these changes would have on the quality of life for people in the north. This change would be acutely felt in Scotland, raising real safety and quality of life concerns, and this is now a real test for the Tory government and its claims of a respect agenda for Scotland."

I am still willing to be convinced, if the evidence is such to disprove my concerns. Yet I doubt it. The impact on Scotland is too great. The costs must surely outweigh the benefits and, judging by Ed Davey's comments today, I expect the Government believes this too.

UPDATE (4th December, 17.09): Paul Goodman, the former Conservative MP for Wycombe now writing at ConservativeHome, a right-wing website, pointed out in an article the day after the debate that Mark Lazarowicz, Labour and Co-op MP for Edinburgh North & Leith is another supportive Scot. Do have a glance at Goodman's piece: you get a better flavour of the debate itself as he quotes at greater length. He also picks up on the point about a north-south divide in terms of support for the Bill.

What does the word cloud say about The Rambler?

2010-12-02T09:42:00.001Z

Above is a word cloud of The Rambler, courtesy of Wordle this morning (click on the image to expand).

The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the articles.

Without wishing to delve into too great a psychoanalysis.....thoughts?

Dear Scottish MPs, mind your own parliamentary business

2010-12-01T15:49:00.000Z

Yesterday was the feast day of St Andrew, the patron saint of Scotland. I sincerely hope that all people in Scotland had an enjoyable Latha Naomh Anndra and that the whisky burn at the back of the throat has disappeared by this evening. I find that ibuprofen, rather than paracetamol, tends to be better at easing the consequences of that particular tipple.

Something else than the Scottish fire-water gave me a headache last night - something that no over-the-counter painkiller can subdue. What was it? Scottish MPs. Why? Their insistent bleating about Government reforms to higher education that have nothing to do with them.

A devolved matter, the Scottish Parliament voted in 2000 to abolish tuition fees for all Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish and European Union students - just about everyone apart from English students. That was their choice to do so and residents of Scotland have to make do with budget restraints in other areas.

The upcoming reforms to higher education in England and Wales do not, therefore, concern the constituents of the honourable Members from North Britain. Why, then, did a series of them bob up and down in the House of Commons last night in search of a say in the Opposition debate on higher education? And to the loss of other honourable Members whose constituents will actually be affected by the reforms?

Pamela Nash MP, 'Baby of the House'

Ian Murray (Lab, Edinburgh South) failed in his efforts to get the Secretary of State, Vince Cable, to give way, but it was not long afterwards that Fiona O'Donnell (Lab, East Lothian) was up on her feet to whinge about Lib-Dem members putting out leaflets in the snow. Then Pamela Nash (Lab, Airdrie & Shotts) interrupted Iain Stewart (C, Milton Keynes South) with the claim that the Government is introducing its reforms based on ideology. I don't think that the Baby of the House (Ms Nash is 26) is so young that she cannot recall that the Government is acting on the advice of an independent report commissioned by the preivous Labour Government. Moreover, as a recent politics graduate of the University of Glasgow, she has (unlike me and my peers from English universities) never had to pay tuition fees, but was happy to work as Lord (John) Reid's researcher when he was a long-serving member of the Labour Government that increased fees twice against manifesto promises.

Some moments later, Peter Wishart (SNP, Perth & North Perthshire) spat out a party political broadcast on behalf of his virtuous, caring and competent party colleagues prior to making the bewildering claim that, "these pernicious fees will have a significant impact on Scottish higher education...[and] disastrous consequences for our universities." What are these consequences?

"English universities will be awash with tuition fees [so] we will be at a competitive disadvantage. The fact that we will not have the same development and resources to provide research facilities to attract international students could have disastrous consequences."

My retort is too obvious to mention (guesses as to my solution to Mr Wishart's dilemma on the back of a postcard).

Anas Sarwar (Lab, Glasgow Central) followed less than ten minutes later. To his credit, he scathingly referred to the above "rather delusional performance from the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire" and decided to focus on the more debatable necessity of the 80 per cent cuts to teaching grants. Yet Mr Sarwar referred to the "thousands of students, school pupils, teaching staff and parents" that the reforms will affect and "our young people". Not your young people, sir, for they remain un-affected. Like your father's former Glasgow constituent, the aforementioned Pamela Nash MP, they don't have to pay tuition fees at all.

The West Lothian Question is not a constitutional quirk that has ever excited me. 'English votes for English laws', an 'English Parliament', or other apparent solutions, pose far too great a threat to the future solidarity and existence of the Union. Like the inherent electoral bias of constituency size enjoyed by the Labour Party, I've always seen the West Lothian issue as a Question not worth an Answer.

Yet on this issue of tuition fees, for historical reasons, I make an exception. For it was the voting support of Scottish MPs in January 2004 that enabled the Tony Blair to pass the Higher Education Bill by the slender margin of 316-311, and thus introduce university top-up fees of £3,000. Labour's Scottish MPs were described at the time as "reprehensible", "constitutionally cavalier" and "Tony's Tartan lobby fodder". In stark contrast, the lone 'Tartan Tory', Peter Duncan (former MP for Galloway & Upper Nithsdale), had the dignity to ignore his party whip and abstain.

I have since come to accept the necessity of tuition fees but I, like Conservative MPs and the wording of Labour's 1997 and 2001 manifestos, opposed their introduction at the time. In 2004, English MPs (of all parties) and the English public were overwhelmingly against them but they got through because of Scottish Labour MPs whose constituents were unaffected. And now, Scottish MPs have the gall to stand up in Parliament and oppose their further increase, at a time of tentative economic recovery and the nation's finances in a mess (their mess, no less), having voted to increase fees when the economy was booming.

This time, unlike in 2004, the votes and speeches of Scottish MPs should not derail the democratic prerogative of the English MPs whose constituents these reforms affect, and affect alone. Even if most Liberal Democrat MPs abstain on the vote, it shall pass.

In 2004, the involvement of Scottish Labour MPs was a constitutional scandal. Thankfully, today it is merely a bloody cheek.

Au contraire, mon frere - English wine and cheese is world's best

2010-11-26T16:05:00.003Z

The French presume themselves a cultured race. If the US is the world's policeman, France is the world's critic. Les philosophes taught us enlightenment and reason; les révolutionnaires brought us liberty, equality and fraternity; and great chefs like Escoffier gave us haute cuisine. The French have instructed us how to think, how to govern and how to cook. Or so they deign to believe.

If we think of perceived French cultural superiority today, we think principally of gastronomy and oenology (at least, I certainly do, having lived in Paris in my formative years). Food and wine.

It in their regional produce that the French proclaim gastronomic pre-eminence. The world may have become adept at imitating its cuisine but you cannot mimic le terroir. First growth claret, regal Burgundy, or exclusive, extravagant, celebratory Champagne. Michelin stars. Oozing, pungent, lavish, sumptuous cheese: Brie de Meaux, Pont-l'Évêque, Livarot, or Vacherin Mont d'Or.

In their own eyes, no other nation can match them for the quality of their wine and cheese. Not the Spanish with their manchego and Rioja, nor the Italians with their parmiggiano and Chianti. Certainly not the English. The gulf between France and its ancient adversaries, les rosbifs, in matters culinary and vine is as wide as Gerard Depardieu's nose.

Of course it is. The French could not hope to match England's green and pleasant land for wine and cheese, we have always known that, and now the world believes it too.

The writing was on le mur in 1992 when a blind tasting of West Sussex vineyard Nyetimber's Blanc des Blancs caused a fierce debate about which appellation of France it came from. Since then, its Classic Cuvée and Blanc des Blancs vintages of sparkling wine (i.e. Champagne) have scooped numerous global awards. Nyetimber is a three times winner of the 'Best Worldwide Sparkling Wine' at the IWSC competition as well as 'Champion of Worldwide Sparkling Wines 2009' at the Bollicine del Mondo, ahead of 13 sparklers from Champagne.

This year, the producers of Epernay and Reims could not even better Nyetimber's relatively unknown Sussex neighbour, Ridgeview, whose 2006 vintage Grosvenor Blanc des Blancs was awarded the illustrious 2010 Decanter Trophy for best sparkling wine in the world.

And just as France was recovering from collective cultural miasma, the unthinkable happened. Not only can French sparkling wine no longer compete with England, nor can its cheese.

Cornish Blue cheese

An English cheese, Cornish Blue from Liskeard, ranked ahead of 2,600 entries from 26 countries to win this year's World Cheese Awards. A cow's milk cheese, it has "a freshness that is a world away from the briny tang of Roquefort or the aged complexity of Stilton...a wholly different approach to blue cheese."

Former French president, Jacques Chirac, who stands trial for corruption early next year, once said that "the only thing [the English] have ever done for European agriculture is mad cow disease [and] after Finland, it is the country with the worst food."

It tickles me pink as a Ladurée macaroon to think of Monsieur Chirac, spluttering over his morning croissant as he eats metaphorical tarte pénitente.

Sherlock Holmes' portly companion Dr Watson uttered:

"Even the coeur flottant merveilleux aux fraises, presented with a great flourish, made little impression, for it was no more than what may happen to the simple, honest dish of strawberries and cream once it falls into the hands of a Frenchman."

The craft and complexity of France's soccer skills might still be too much for the English, but as this country is steadfastly proving, when it comes to gastronomy, brilliant simplicity trumps over-elaboration and pretence.

American cartoon comedy The Simpsons, in 1995, labelled the French "cheese eating surrender monkeys". They're right about the first bit, but in the world of cheese and wine, don't bet on the French believing a word of the hype over England's triumphant offerings.

They won't surrender. Not one bit. Their cheese and wine will always be the best. But after all, the French wouldn't be the French without that endearing belief in their cultural superiority.

Cheer up, mes amis, you still have the Alps, the climate and Carla Bruni. You can plan the party. Just leave the catering to us.