Civitas Blog

With the publication of A-level, GCSE and SATs results there's been much discussion about the impact of being in school - but how has being out of school for the summer affected the class achievement gap?

The summer holidays, according to sociologists from Johns Hopkins University (recently quoted in an article in the New York Times), are a key compounder of the class achievement gap. Whilst middle class pupils consolidate and extend their learning, low-income pupils slip significantly behind. This type of finding is very significant for the New Labour education project which is based on the premise that the best way to solve socio-economic inequality is through schooling. Moreover, it is significant in light of the government’s declared 'zero tolerance' for deprivation as an influence on performance. The improvement drive under New Labour has involved disallowing background as a reason for underperformance. Admirable as the goal may be, trying to negate the impact of socio-economic background has, amongst other things, meant trying to get schools to do the impossible. However, the main problem with Blair's optimism over the equalising potential of schools is that it is not only naïve it leaves home life disadvantage un-tackled. In this sense such a ‘myopic’ focus on education has institutionalised the issue of socio-economic inequality and monopolised the solution. Rather than continually increasing the time children spend in school, a greater focus on tackling root inequality via family-related policy would be more effective. The difficulty is that doing so now would mean the New Labour government admitting a certain level of defeat. Admitting that though education holds enormous potential it cannot be treated as a single magic wand, would defy the very principle of the government’s reforms in education. However, there is a desperate need to start doing so when past failure has forfeited addressing the causes of inequality. If we are to properly address the achievement gap, we need to ensure that we don’t idealise the impact of schooling and re-acknowledge the impact of home-life – in order to concentrate on tackling the disadvantage itself.

Peter Mandelson, the embattled EU Trade Commissioner, has this week written in the East African defending the EU’s record on preferential trade agreements with developing countries. Specifically, he refutes the claim that the wonderful specimen that is the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is itself the problem. Not likely. Take, for example, Sir Digby Jones’ (Chairman of the CBI) comment that ‘the way to build lasting economic growth [in Africa] is for Europe to end the CAP’. And even Mr Blair agrees with him, putting the reduction of CAP at the forefront of the government’s so-called ‘Marshall Plan’ to Africa.

The reasoning is simple. The agricultural subsidies that make up CAP defend European producers from cheaper products outside the EU, by enabling them to sell their produce at lower prices than would otherwise be possible. Moreover the EU often makes the deal doubly difficult for developing nations by whacking tariffs on any produce from the outside. And the most criminal thing about it is that such a regime typically encourages over-production within the EU which is, more often than not, dumped on developing countries at cheap prices, destroying local producers and markets.

But CAP also tends to set the tone for EU protectionism as a whole. The EU will point to the fact that it currently gives notionally ‘duty free’ access under the ‘everything but arms’ scheme to goods from small developing countries. But this does not cover large low income countries that are equally as poor. And even for those that have been lucky enough to secure preferential trade regimes, such as Kenya, for whom at present 97% exports to the EU are entitled to duty free market access it is something of a fad. The regime comes to an end on December 31st 2007, upon which Kenya will have to migrate to the General Systems of Parity (GSP) trade regime where most agricultural products will face some import duty. This wholly contradicts Mandelson’s trump card: the EU’s ‘offer’ (French opposed of course) to eliminate all farm subsidies by 2013 at the Doha Round if others do the same.

A recent report by the Brussels-based think-tank, Centre for New Europe, estimated 6,600 people die every day in the developing world because of the trading rules of the EU, i.e. one person every thirteen seconds.

And that ignores the fact that CAP raises the cost of food even in the UK – part of the protected zone - for the average family of four in the UK by around £10 a week (against what would be paid for the same food on the open world market).

By James Gubb

In a display of rhetorical prowess that would doubtless immediately qualify him for the award of an A-level in Logic should this subject be offered at that level, Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev has recently strung together an astonishing series of non sequiturs in support of his country and Romania being allowed to enter the EU next January on the same terms as were offered to the east European countries who joined in 2004, which include full and immediate rights for their nationals to enter and work in the UK.

First, he denies Bulgarians will come to Britain in large numbers. Its climate, he says, is far too cold for their tastes, as, he says, is shown by their having chosen to settle in southern Europe when they do migrate.

Second, he argues, unlike Poland, Bulgaria lacks close historic ties with the UK or any established ex-patriot community there to serve as an inducement for them to come in the way he claims such things have done in the case of Poles who have entered Britain to work since the accession of their country in 2004.

Finally, he contends, should the UK withhold the right to settle and work there from Bulgarians after their country joins the EU, then any shortfall in labour needs in the UK will be met by illegal immigrants from Africa and Asia, who, he points out, would pose a greater security risk for Britain than Bulgarians would.

The Bulgarian Prime Minister set out his case for his compatriots being allowed to settle and work in Britain on the same terms as the Poles and others were given in 2004 in an interview with the Times reported in its issue today.

Let us briefly consider its cogency.

First, if, as he says, Bulgarians wouldn’t come to the UK, despite being allowed to, because its climate’s too cold for them, then they won’t be disadvantaged should they be denied the right to come and work here. Moreover, that they have to date emigrated only to warm southern Europe countries does not show this is where they will chose to remain content to emigrate, should, in future, they become able to emigrate to colder but more affluent countries in the north.

Second, nationals from other east European countries besides Poland that entered the EU at the same time as it did, such as Slovakia, have come to work in the UK in very substantial numbers, despite their country not enjoying the same close historic links with Britain that Poland has long enjoyed. So, the absence of such links between Bulgaria and Britain cannot be thought of as necessarily serving as any psychological impediment to immigration by those standing to earn considerably higher wages, as Bulgarians would, if given the opportunity to work in Britain.

Finally, in view of Africa and Asia being even warmer than Bulgaria where temperatures in winter are reported to reach as low as minus 20C , it would seem that job-prospects in Britain must be more attractive to Africans and Asians than to Bulgarians, since they are apparently prepared to suffer steeper falls in temperature to gain them. So, if the Bulgarian Prime Minister is correct that low temperatures in a country inhibit migration to it, it follows Africans and Asians must want to work in Britain more strongly than do Bulgarians, from which it follows that they would be willing to accept lower wages than Bulgarians for the same work, or prepared to do jobs work at wages lower than those any Bulgarians would be willing to accept. Hence, Bulgarians becoming able to work in Britain after 1 January 2007 is unlikely to choke off demand for or the supply of illegal immigrants from Africa and Asia.

Of course, all this discussion about EU immigration to Britain is besides the point in many ways, as Sir Andrew Green has pointed out recently in an article that first appeared in the Daily Telegraph at the end of August under the title ‘EU Immigration is not the problem’. Such concern is deflecting attention from where the most acute immigration challenge Britain is currently facing lies. This is from legal immigration from non EU countries currently running at over a quarter of a million a year, a three-fold increase since 1997. As Sir Andrew explains in his article:

‘In the long run, this is a much more important issue [than immigration from EU countries]. Not only are immigrants from outside Europe more likely to stay on here, but also some are from distant cultures that find integration more difficult.’

The more legal immigrants from outside the EU allowed into Britain the easier does is become for illegal immigrants from these same countries to enter Britain and remain there undetected and unchallenged by the authorities.

Maybe, it would be better, on balance, for Britain, should a temporary freeze on immigration to Britain from future EU accession countries to give the country time to absorb and adjust to the levels of those who have already come. It would be far better and is even more urgently needed for there to be a more than temporary freeze on the number of immigrants from non-EU countries allowed to enter and settle in Britain.

One thing one has to say to say on behalf of the credit of the Bulgarian Prime Minister, he’s certainly got plenty of chutzpah, if little logical prowess!

Today’s Times contains a report about a former University of Cambridge Chaplain and ordained Anglican priest whom the Church of England has apparently given license to continue to officiate at its services, despite his having converted to Hinduism, having changed his name to Ananda, and his having gone in for blessing daily a Hindu congregation daily in a Hindu ritual using fire connected with its snake god Nagar.

A photograph accompanying the report shows the Anglican priest praying before a statue of the Hindu elephant god, Ganesh.

When I read the story, the word ‘IDIOT’ immediately sprang to mind, but not quite for the reasons you might think.

As an impoverished undergraduate I made the easiest money I ever have, as I recall what back then was the princely sum of a fiver, by submitting the winning entry in a weekly competition run by the long since defunct journal Punch which invited readers to explain for what the acronym IDIOT stood.

I explained it stood for an organisation whose full title was 'Inter-Deic Integrator of Original Theisms'. This body, I explained, had been created with the aim of persuading the deities held sacred by each of the world's main religions of their respective individual excellences. It hoped thereby, I wrote, that these various deities would eventually unite to create GOD that is, a Greater Ontological Deity, which consortium would be a sort of UN of all-powerful powers.

In having thought as I did upon reading today’s story, it should not be supposed I considered dimly of the Anglican priest for having converted to Hinduism. This is a religion, or more strictly an assortment of religions, for which, like him, I too have the highest regard.

I do think silly, however, the justification for his form of religious synchretism which he is eported to have given in his book Trading Faith: Global Religion in an Age of Rapid Change which is that ‘Hinduism accepts the divinity of Jesus and is an especially tolerant and open faith’.

Doubtless, what the good reverend says about Hinduism is true. But, that no more shows Christians can or should acknowledge and worship Hindu deities than does the fact that Jesus recognised the divinity of the God whom Jews believe in and worship means that Jews can and should return the compliment and recognise the divinity of Jesus and pray to him, or that Christians and Jews and Christians both can and should admit Muhammed to be a prophet and accept is teachings simply because he recognised Moses and Jesus to have been divinely inspired.

Ah well, each to his own, I suppose were matters of faith are concerned.

I remain deeply sceptical, however, that the reverend's regular prayers to Ganesh, traditionally, the Hindu god of good fortune, will indefinitely spare him being debarred from practising as an Anglican priest, given that the office of his diocese is also reported as having denied any knowledge of his conversion to Hinduism until this week.

Since Blair’s return from holiday, social exclusion has been at the forefront of his public statements. Alienation from his party aside, Blair has trailed the publication of a government report on social exclusion (out tomorrow) with a series of statements about the proposed strategies. The most notable - and most publicised - have revolved around tackling the ‘root causes’ of social exclusion. The first pronouncement was to do with identifying potentially problematic children, the second with lowering the teenage pregnancy rate. Yet although the alleged novelty of the proposals is their back to basics nature, they in fact focus too much on tackling the symptoms, in the short-term. Crucially, this means that despite the close connection between the two issues – struggling children and teen parenthood - the strategies are barely linked to each other. The two sets of proposals pay far too little attention to the socio-economic circumstances within which both children with difficult upbringings are born into, and teenagers give birth in.

The proposal to intervene in families which risk producing ‘antisocial’ children, whilst declared to be early intervention, effectively skips the core problem. What makes specific groups of children more susceptible to a difficult childhood, is clearly neither innate in them nor in their parents – it is innate to their circumstances. Blair identified the children of teen parents and alcohol and drug abusers as potential risks. Yet the point is not that bad parenting skills are concentrated within these groups but rather that the situations these parents are in present huge hurdles to their being able to optimally provide for their children. What needs addressing therefore, is why certain teen pregnancy and drug and alcohol addiction are concentrated in certain sections of society. Intervening in childcare arrangements, as the government’s recommendations suggest, leaves the underlying issue unresolved.

The strategy to lower England’s teenage pregnancy rate similarly fails to have a sufficient grasp of the root causes. New proposals simply continue and extend the contraception awareness approach, despite the fact that this approach has had only a limited effect. Such a one-pronged strategy both ignores those girls who are deliberately getting pregnant and does not address the deficit of information about the adverse outcomes of teen parenting for both mother and child.

A large part of the problem is the motivation behind the new strategies for tackling social exclusion. With only a little time left in power, and therefore only a little time to fulfil his promises regarding social equality, Blair is perhaps thinking more about his political legacy and less about the long-term impact of his policies. Most concerning, is that once the money has been earmarked for these hasty strategies, it will be very difficult to reallocate it after Blair’s departure. A fulfilled legacy indeed.

French presidential hopeful Nicolas Sarkozy attempted to kick-start the EU from its period of ‘reflection’ last Friday by presenting a ‘mini-Treaty’ to solve its constitutional quandaries. The ‘mini-treaty’ would include ‘about two thirds’ of the flailing Constitution, including:

· the election of the Commission president by the European Parliament;
· creation of a European minister of foreign affairs;
· replacing unanimity by a "super qualified majority";
· reinforced cooperation, and;
· citizen initiatives.

But let us ignore the undoubted importance of what is in and what is out for just a minute. The point that everyone should be screaming about is M. Sarkozy’s insistence that national parliaments could decide on a slimmer version of the constitution without the need for fresh referenda. The reason he gives? That voters in France and Netherlands who voted the old constitution down would be satisfied to see the just two-thirds of it that he says should remain, because they were ‘not critical’ issues. It sounds astonishing arrogance doesn’t it? Perhaps we should be grateful that he at least said parliaments, rather than governments – there would be a chance of national debate.

Yet the future of something so far-reaching as the EU has become through removing large chunks of sovereignty from its member states (including of course the UK), should be put to its people directly. No British parliament in the present climate will be elected on its constituency members views on Europe. But the fact is no-one with influence in Brussels wants referenda, even on a ‘mini-treaty’ because they know they would probably lose. One of the biggest criticisms of the EU is that it has always an elite project run far from the ‘masses’; it seems M. Sarkozy wants it to remain that way.

By James Gubb

A batch of newly published educational statistics reported in today’s Times makes troublesome reading. They show boys are progressively falling behind girls at school in the 3R’s. Neither boys nor girls, however, would appear to have much to write home about concerning their respective attainment levels in these areas, assuming, that is, they know how to. For they remain woefully below the expected standard in mathematics and reading at age 14 for both sexes and have fallen this year in the case of both sexes.

Of course, poor national literacy and numeracy has never stood in the way of the apparent ever-improving national performance of our schoolchildren at GCSE, A-levels, and gaining entry to University whose undergraduate numbers have increased by a third in the last decade. Yet, in these areas, the story once again is of girls consistently coming to out-perform boys, by achieving better GCSE and A level results at school and by now outnumbering boys at University in all subjects.

How worried should we all be about the apparent decline and fall of the English schoolboy?

Professor Geoffrey Crossick, who chairs the universities' umbrella group Universities UK, is clearly one who thinks we all should be. He is reported to have voiced concern about ‘a subset of young men who are not going to university’ who turn out to be ‘mainly low-income white males … just as capable of going to university as others but who are not getting the chance to benefit from going’ because, according he says, they feel ‘locked out of the higher education world’.

Professor Crossick’s proposed remedy to save this educationally endangered species from permanent exclusion from the delights of spending three years wandering in the groves of academe, at the likely personal cost of clocking up an enormous debt, is affirmative action on their behalf in the form of an outreach programme targeted at persuading them to aspire after a University place.

One possible way to pitch such an outreach campaign would be to draw to their attention the superabundant supply of young women they are likely to encounter at University. I suspect, however, such a proposed outreach campaign would not survive scrutiny from the equal opportunities mandarins at the DfES.

Another more promising campaign line would be to draw the attention of these boys to the following highly significant statistic released without much comment along with all the other newly released ones. Despite being outperformed by their female counterparts at A level and outnumbered by them at University in all subjects, male undergraduates apparently still do better than female undergaduates at final honours, gaining more firsts despite being fewer in number.

In this anomalous statistic, are we just seeing the effect of a process of educational natural selection whereby only the most talented and keen males now apply for University? Or are we seeing something else many of us have long suspected? This is that introduction of modular-style course-work-based continuous assessment at GCSE and A level has consistently favoured girls, who tend to be more diligent, compliant and conscientious than boys, who, being more wayward and high-risk-taking than girls but just as proficient at least potentially, tend to out-perform girls in assessment when undergone in the more demanding conditions of the examination hall?

Should the latter be the reason why male undergraduates still outperform female ones in final honours, then, perhaps, it will become somewhat less of a mystery why, despite all the educational progress that girls have made in the last thirty years, women remain out-earned by men in the workplace. This pay-gap continues to vex Jenny Watson, chair of the Equal Opportunities Commission, who is reported to have responsed to the news that girls now do much better than boys at school and gaining a place in University by urging us all to ‘remember that while girls are forging ahead at school, they are still falling behind in the workplace and continue to suffer a 17% pay gap’.

One possible explanation for this pay-gap, however, as well as for the better male undergraduate performance at final honours, is that, in general, males are simply more competitive and more driven to excel than females.

Not only does this fact explain why, despite all the odds now being stacked against them, men still out-number women at the top of all hierarchies open to both sexes, a fact which does much to account for the paygap between them. It also explains why, under conditions of fair competition between them, which assuredly prevail in University assessment only when conducted by means of double-marked anonymous final unseen examination the mode of assessment favoured by all the best Universities in the determination of final honours, male students always tend to outperform their female counterparts.

Of course, none of this will or should be of much consolation to those young white males who won’t go to university because they have failed to learn to read and write at school, let alone gain the requisite A level grades. Sadly, they are the prime casualties of years of progressive educational policy, especially that directed towards achieving ‘equality of opportunity’ between the sexes in education which has been a code-word for women being giving preferential treatment in academia in all manner of subtle and not so subtle ways.

Professor Crossick is reported to have remarked in connection with the young white males whom he intends to encourage to aspire after a University education: ‘What is bad for society is having subsets of the population who don’t think higher education is for them’. In my view, still worse for society is having influential subsets of the population who think, like he, that higher education is and should be for everyone, and, like Jenny Watson, think the pay-gap something that necessarily can and should be closed, so long as it favours men.

In what threatens to be a rerun -- mercifully, on only a more sedate and much smaller scale -- of last year’s Danish cartoons furore, an ecumenical group calling itself the Churches Advertising Network (CAN) is rapidly becoming the centre of controversy over a poster it commissioned for display this coming Christmas. The poster is intended to remind to all in need of one that, at the core of the festive season, lies an event of religious significance being commemorated, a fact that makes the season more than just an excuse for a two-week bender which for so many is all it has become.

Displayed on the poster is an empty beer-glass down which froth has assumed the form of an image of a bearded face that can, and is clearly intended to, be taken as that of Jesus. Next to it, the poster asks: ‘Where will you find him?’

Newspapers have had no difficulty finding people who object to the the poster.

Some deep-seated problems, including high crime, falling education standards, unsustainable immigration, the low quality of the NHS, and rising welfare dependency are not being properly confronted by our political leaders. In particular, political discussion of public services like health and education still seems wedged halfway between the age of collectivism and a more consumer-friendly alternative.

Discussions are taking place across the political spectrum about the next steps and Recalibrating the Right is our contribution. It argues that we need to re-think the guiding principles of a free society, the obligations we owe each other and the traditional values we should uphold in order to discover the beliefs we should embrace in the immediate future. What's good about our country - and there's plenty to admire - and what's gone wrong? How can we come together to fix the problems that our political leaders are afraid to confront? What should be the relationship between a people and its government?

The first chapter sets out the guiding principles for reform and we are publishing it online to give our supporters a chance to contribute to our emerging work. We invite anyone who is interested to contribute their thoughts before the draft is finalised and published as a book. There are two ways to contribute: you can email us at this address or you can comment via this blog.

After a fortnight of concern about the ‘state’ of childhood, the Archbishop of Canterbury has stepped in: to warn us about the huge pressures that children are under. A key strain Rowan Williams highlighted in an interview this morning with BBC Breakfast, was the ‘relentless’ testing children are now subject to, which starts from a very young age. The saddest part of this particular contributor to the nation’s increasingly unhealthy and unhappy children is that it is so needless. Far worse, in fact, it is actually setting back holistic primary school learning, with inevitable effects on pupils’ later school careers. Last week, fresh evidence came to light of the widespread cramming which is now happening in primary schools. Research found that children who had gained the required level in the tests at the end of Year 2, were found to be significantly below that level when tested informally the subsequent year. Tragically, the purpose of this so-called ‘teaching to the test’ was to reach government targets. Pupils under pressure not for their own benefit, in other words, but for party politics’.

Having been away for three weeks in the United States I have returned to find myself somewhat behind in developments within the EU, particularly in light of recent events in Sweden and Hungary. So in place of a full blog, I would like instead to point you in the direction of an excellent article in the Financial Times today on the issue of Turkish membership of the EU. Enjoy.

In a Times op-ed on Monday of this week, William Rees-Mogg defended Pope Benedict for having spiced up a lecture last week with a quotation describing Islam as a violent religion. Despite recognising the quotation to be offensive to Muslims, Rees-Mogg defended the Pope for including the quotation in his talk on the grounds that the Koran does contain much that Muslims can and do construe to endorse, if not demand, the use of violence in the furtherance of the spread of their creed.

‘Pope Benedict will have done Islam a service' concludes Rees-Mogg in his piece, 'if he has started a debate within Islam and between Islam and … critics’.

Can the author of Monday's defence of the Pope be the same William Rees-Mogg as wrote an op-ed published in the Times last February criticising on grounds of their offensiveness to Muslim sensibilities a Danish newspaper for having published cartoons of Muhammed designed to make the very same point about Islam as that which this week's Rees-Mogg defends the Pope for having made?

If so, surely, it would have helped regular readers of the Times had Rees-Mogg given some explanation in Monday’s piece of what had led to his apparent change of mind. Or, should he consider this week's defence of the Pope not at odds with his earlier condemnation of Jyttlands Posten for having published cartoons of Muhammed, to have explained what the morally relevant difference is between these two forms of criticism of Islam.

Should Pete Doherty ever find himself banged up for possessing hard drugs, he would soon discover that incarceration had not remotely put them beyond his reach. This is especially so, should he have been incarcerated north of the border.

According to a report in yesterday’s Times, so easy has it become for inmates in Scottish prisons to gain access to illict hard drugs while inside them, and so awash with drugs have they become, that they are shortly all to be given personal drug-taking kits, complete with syringes, swabs, filers, and a sharps disposal box.

I was only surprised to read that a gram or two of heroin or coke is not be thrown for good measure.

Last week the Liberal Democrats proposed dropping primary testing at their party conference - and in light of the damaging distortions entrenched in the SATs, how right they are.

As the clock continues to tick on the consultation phase of the EU’s ‘Strategic Energy Review’, which is due on January 10th, the debate continues over the degree of liberalisation that should occur within the European internal energy market. Two recent statements set out the continuing positions but also show a wavering on the part of the protectionist camp. In the red corner, Neelie Kroes, EU Competition Commissioner, spoke at an economic forum in Italy on September 2nd and made the Commission’s point very clear:

“Let’s not allow ourselves to be sidetracked by the out-dated rhetoric of protectionism, artificially created national champions may have short-term appeal but this is often to the long-term detriment of European competitiveness and European consumers.”

“the result of a deliberate industrial policy that is approved by all parties, with due respect to the cultures of each enterprise and each country.”

Today’s Times reports senior members of the German government to be critical of the decision by the German national opera to cancel its planned run of a Mozart opera for fear that a recently added coda in which the hero appears brandishing the severed heads of several religious leaders, among whose is that of Mohammed's, and then announces the gods are dead, might so offend Muslims that they decide to bring the house down in an altogether novel way of registering audience disapproval of a show.

Of course, this kind of self-censorship is deeply regrettable. But under present circumstances, it is hardly unwarranted. Even if the opera went ahead with ‘Caveat Emptor’ warnings stuck on all billboards and tickets, it would still risk exacting reprisals that a theatre company is perfectly entitled to think are not worth taking, even for artistic reasons.

That is just a sign of how badly under threat Europe is now.

Pope Benedict XVl delivered his controversial lecture at the University of Regensburg on Friday 15th September. His lecture was controversial because it included a quotation from a 14th century text that was highly critical of Islam.

The inclusion of that passage ignited massive protests around the world from Muslims who claimed that it had insulted their religion and its founding prophet. In the Middle East, churches were burnt in protest, and, in one north African country, a nun murdered in apparent retaliation for what the Pope had said.

Where there have been demonstrations against the Pope, some have merely demanded that he apologise for having insulted their religion. Others have gone further, calling for the Pope to be killed by way of punishment. Demonstrations of this latter sort arguably verge on incitement.

On the Sunday following the lecture, a widely reported demonstration against the Pope took place outside Westminster Cathedral at which various placards were displayed and slogans chanted that bordered on calling on Muslims to kill the Pope in revenge for including the quotation in his lecture.

This demonstration was well-attended by police who received a score of complaints from those attending the Cathedral service that morning who claimed to have been upset and intimidated by what they witnessed upon leaving it.

Although a spokesman for the CPS is reported to have not ruled out that some prosecutions may result from what was said at the demonstration, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair is today reported as being satisfied none were.

He is reported as having said of the demonstration: ‘We are living in an angry time. It is the job of the Metropolitan Police to hold the line of free speech and it is a difficult line to hold. But in this particular case I am satisfied there were no offences committed by anybody.’

On the Sunday of the demonstration, a Catholic medical student living in London who keeps a blog attended the service in the Cathedral. This is what he posted about the demonstration that same day:

‘My family decided this Sunday to make the trip to Westminster Cathedral together. As we came out about 100 Islamists were chanting slogans such as "Pope Benedict go to Hell", "Pope Benedict you will pay, the Muja Hadeen are coming your way", "Pope Benedict watch your back", and other pretty hateful things.

‘There were about 100 police around and about keeping an eye on things and video recording the protestors. I asked if they'd be prosecuted, and the policeman sounded edgey. He said they'd been warned about their behaviour already but arresting any of them might just fuel them up ever more.’

In light of this personal testimony, backed up by several photographs taken at the time by him and posted along with his account, presumably Sir Ian Blair’s denial that any offences were committed at the demonstration illustrates what sort of policing he had in mind for the capital on appointment when he introduced a new logo for the force which runs: ‘Working Together for a Safer London’.

That this form of policing may result in Rome or elswhere in the world becoming less safe is presumably of no concern to the Met.