10 May 2004
PM chief suspect as president disappears
When the president of the National Association of Head Teachers disappeared mysteriously from the platform in the middle of the Cardiff conference last week, it did not take a Ruth Rendell or a P D James to work out who done it.
In this case it was not the butler, but the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Tony Blair, MP. He was an obvious suspect, because although he was not scheduled in the conference papers to speak – the Government was to be represented by a decoy minister, David Miliband – word had got around early in the proceedings that he would be lurking in the wings. His weapon? A speech. His alibi? None.
The evidence was indisputable. Popular NAHT president Dr Rona Tutt had indeed vanished from the platform to greet the guest speaker, and the conference was left in supposed ignorance – which is difficult when you have a room full of detectives.
Of course they knew. Head teachers know everything. And if they didn’t, there was the very subtle hint of a hefty dollop of policing outside, together with barriers, obviously unobtrusive men in suits and the kind of walk-through machine that always goes off when I approach it in airports. Happily on this occasion it missed all my hidden metal.
Inside the conference hall, things were tense, because the president had come back, but there was no sign of her guest. So they did what head teachers do best: they got everyone to stand up, then sit down again. The second time they got up there was an announcement: “Ladies and Gentleman, the Rt Hon Tony Blair.” Which was a bit of a giveaway, because he still loitered in an offside position, out of sight but not out of mind.
They sat down again. I have to say this was done really well, as if they had done it before somewhere. And then at last, the real thing – or was it? Mr Blair was announced again, and from the shadows to the podium stepped … veteran general secretary David Hart, with a brief but witty introduction.
The tension was getting to some people, but they were mainly journalists. The heads endured more stress in an average day at school, and the Blair speech quickly dissipated any that remained. After dignified applause, the PM departed as swiftly as he came. But what about questions? Well, happily we had the lumbered but youthfully optimistic Mr Miliband, who quickly won delegates over by admitting that he had not long ago been described as a “Year 8 in a suit”. Not entirely appropriate, I thought. You don’t get many Year 8s with a sense of humour who can not only answer questions but also do what they’re told.
Parents with flimsy grasp on reality
Charles Clarke may want to see closer co-operation between parents and teachers, but this will require considerably more movement from many parents than from the teachers.
His boss, Mr Blair, was right to say last week that when he and I were at school if you got in trouble with the teacher you would get in trouble with your parents too: now things are very different, as can be seen from the rash of ridiculous court cases brought against teachers, instigated by parents with only the flimsiest grasp on reality.
I once expressed astonishment at the behaviour of a child in a city school that I was visiting, only to be told: “If you knew her mother, you’d understand.” This was not an isolated case.
Only a few days ago I was speaking to a man who has spent a large part of his life voluntarily coaching East Anglian boys aged eight to 14 in soccer skills, and running teams to develop their ability. He has now stopped doing so because over the years the atmosphere changed completely: in the end he received constant abuse from the boys, many of whom were totally lacking in discipline – and appeals to their parents to back him up fell on stony ground.
Of course there are good mothers and fathers, and I know many of them. So it is sad that children who have all the basic equipment to be delightful human beings can get lumbered with parents who are so dense that they think angst-ridden soaps and bolshy downmarket tabloids reflect the way life should be lived.
Coming clean over apple laundry
I may have been misled about the precise nature of the clothes peg crop that I came across in the Norfolk-Suffolk wilderness recently.
I naturally assumed that it was part of a clandestine operation – disguised as an apple orchard – to grow vast quantities of pegs in a free-range situation. But a regular reader has put me right.
“What you actually stumbled on was an apple laundry,” she writes. “This is a new idea from America, where ‘air-dried sheets’ are a popular boast of hotels.
“Everybody knows you should wash fruit before consuming it. Naturally, when washing large numbers of apples, one needs to hang them out to dry afterwards – using clothes pegs. “Potato laundries may follow, although they will obviously be harder to hang on washing lines, as they have no stalk to peg them on by.” I am happy to set the record straight.
Companies have no street cred
More pedestrianisation in the centre of Norwich may or may not be a good thing. Walking in traffic-free streets is pleasurable enough, but buses and bikes tend to creep up on you unawares, which is probably more dangerous than constant traffic. Then there is the question of where cars and lorries go if you close streets to them. Events in the winter have demonstrated that when you remove alternative routes, you get gridlock, and there is much to be done before the inner link road works smoothly, even without traffic overflows from elsewhere.
But while it is unfortunate that transport policies are decided by political parties with axes to grind, it is even more unfortunate that they should be heavily influenced by companies that are clearly self-interested.
We read that Lend Lease, the company behind the massive Chapelfield development, wants more roads in the centre of the city to be pedestrianised. I do not wonder why this should be, but I do wonder why we should take any notice.
It is probably even more obviously absurd than hocking the future of our schools and hospitals to private companies.