Archive for December, 2006
Reversing the ‘culture of hopelessness’
Posted by James Gubb in European Union on 12/12/2006
David Cameron finally ended his impasse on that political nuisance called the European Union this week by challenging Jose Manuel Barosso and the EU’s leaders to end the prevalent ‘culture of hopelessness’ and confront its failings. In particular he attacked the EU on the CAP and development, fraud, its record on tackling carbon emissions and over-regulation. Tough-talking indeed. But, the question has to be asked: is it really possible?
Who Will Only Have Eyes For You on Xmas Day?
Posted by David Conway in Religion on 08/12/2006
In an intriguing twist to the story about Channel Four’s plan to make over its alternative Christmas Day message to a niqab-wearing Islamic Studies lecturer from Leicester, today’s Times reports the lady in question appears to have had second thoughts about appearing in the slot, claiming she hadn’t been told it was designed for broadcast at the same time as, and in competition with, the Queen’s Christmas Day message.
Channel Four is reported as not being at all concerned that the lady in question, Ms Khaija Ravat, might pull out, insisting it will go ahead with the broadcast anyway.
Could it be that, if Ms Ravat should not turn up for the recording of the message, all Channel Four need do is garb someone else in a niqab and no one would be any the wiser a substitution had been made!
Better still, should Ms Ravat pull out, Channel Four could employ a singer to do the slot and ask her to sing that time-honoured classic ‘I only have eyes for you’!
How silly of me to think Channel Four might do that. It would risk offending Muslims, whereas diss’ing the Queen by broadcasting a rival alternative Christmas Day message to hers, and ridiculing Christmas by giving over the slot to a niqab-wearing Muslim, apparently matters not one iota.
Why the British Should Not Stop Getting Their Niqabs in a Twist
Posted by David Conway in Religion on 07/12/2006
A few weeks ago, our airwaves and newspapers were filled with criticisms of the growing practice among Muslim women in this country of wearing the full face veil or niqab — at work or elsewhere in public. What had triggered this wave of criticism was license for it having been given by several prominent Labour ministers who had set it in train.
For a time, these criticisms seemed destined, if not to stamp out the practice, then at least to make serious inroads into its public acceptability.
Well, if a week in Westminster politics is a long time, a month in identity politics is almost an eternity. Yesterday, as if to register how unserious an issue it considered it to be, Channel Four announced this year its annual alternative Christmas message, broadcast to coincide with the Queen’s, will be given by a niqab-wearing free-lance lecturer on Islamic issues from Leicester named Khadija Ravat.
Come the appointed hour, so today’s Times reports, Ms Ravat will not be tuning into Channel Four to see herself. Instead, it reports, she will be watching the Queen. ‘I’m going to be watching the Queen’s speech. I like being British – being British has so much that can be shared by many people’, she is reported as saying.
All nice clean, good-humoured, knock-about but essentially harmless stuff, you might think, that fully accords with the spirit of peace and good-will to all men that lies at the heart of the festive season. Might I beg to differ?
Swinging towards free trade?
Posted by James Gubb in European Union on 05/12/2006
The European Commission is due to launch plans tomorrow for a ‘new generation’ of free trade agreements with the fast-growing ASEAN countries, South Korea and India. It is being hailed as the epitome of Mandelson’s drive to ‘Lisbonise’ EU trade policy in line with the strategy paper ‘Global Europe: competing in the world’ (Oct 06), which called for the rejection of protectionism across the EU and for the EU to play an active role in opening up markets abroad.
One has, at least, got to credit him for trying. And trying fairly hard. The strategy is purposefully based on “more rigorous” calculation of the possible economic gains from such free trade deals; in the case of South Korea, for example, Mandelson’s office has calculated that there lies the opportunity to increase trade by 30 per cent. There is also little doubt that the Commission’s request for a mandate to negotiate these free trade deals has been presented ‘en masse’ to make it more difficult for member states to pick-and-choose individual countries or regions, thereby blocking the process.
Who knows, it might succeed. But the ‘Prince of Darkness’ will need all his cunning to negotiate through some of the more protectionist states in the EU camp.
Up-to-date on the EU?! If you’re in 2003!
Posted by James Gubb in European Union on 01/12/2006
Some rather dry research into where the EU fits into citizenship teaching, and on the current teaching resources available on the EU, revealed this conundrum that at least made me giggle:
QCA writes: “When deciding whether a resource is appropriate for post-16 citizenship, it is important to consider the following factors:….
2. Is the content up-to-date?”
There is then a related link on their KS4 citizenship page to ‘Schemes of Work’ (DfES), which aims to give a framework for teaching citizenship. “Unit 11: Europe – who decides?” includes the following number one “Point to note”:
“The European Union currently has 15 member states”.
Not that I’m aware of! Is the level of ignorance in the DfES really this high?! I’m sincerely hoping this hasn’t been proof-read.
The Human Cost of Greater Public-Sector ‘Efficiency’
Posted by David Conway in Health on 01/12/2006
Anyone, like the present author, who spent the bulk of their working life in the public-sector will know just how demoralising and counter-productive has been the recent imposition upon it of a managerialist culture.
Formerly self-regulating professions like medicine and teaching have been reduced to box-ticking exercises carried out by hordes of fearful and demoralised zombies desperately counting out the days before they could retire from the monstrously overblown regimes of excessive and unneeded managerial oversight to which they know their once genuine forms of service to the public have been reduced.
Like ships in a convoy forced to sail at the speed of their slowest, this cumbersome and time-consuming method of management has been imposed on schools, hospitals and universities, often in response to purely local instances of malpractice that could have been remedied more easily and expeditiously at a corresondingly purely local level.
Well, this culture of bureaucratic over-management and over-regulation has not been without enormous personal cost for those working in this sector. A glimpse of just how much it has cost them personally has been given this week by a consultant psychiatrist at the Priory Clinic in Surrey.
Best known as the refuge of burnt-out over-partied show-biz celebrities like Robbie Williams and Pete Doherty, the clinic now apparently regularly provides sanctuary for burnt-out public-sector professionals, such as doctors and teachers, whose stay is being funded, reading between the lines of a report about this matter on the BBC News website, by the NHS that has driven so many of them there.