It's the Taking Part that Counts

It hasn’t been a great summer for British sport. England falling before the quarter finals at the World Cup, Andy Murray crashing out of Wimbledon and Mark Cavendish taking himself out of the Tour De France in the first stage have all, I would suspect, left British sports fans very unhappy.

And yet……

And yet despite the failure of our national teams, this hasn’t seemed to stop people from rolling out in force to support our boys regardless of the end result. Thousands of pounds were spent on tickets for Wimbledon and the World Cup, not to mention the amount spent getting football fans to Brazil. And the coverage of the first stage of the Tour was staggering to watch. Crowds packed three or four layers deep lined the route, not only in the towns that the cyclists passed through, but out in the countryside as well. In fact, on the moors the crowds were so large that there was only a very narrow gap for the competitors to pass through.

What is it about sport that seems to inspire this much devotion in the populace? The same was true of the Olympics two years ago. Even people like me – who find sport confusing and really really don’t get the appeal of it -  found ourselves drawn to the Olympics. Not just the opening and closing ceremonies mind, but the actual events. “How did we do in the X?” words that the rest of the year rarely leave my mouth suddenly became a central part of my vocabulary.

I imagine that in the end it is all about togetherness. Sport can be the ultimate unifier. Most sports – with the exception of some like grouse shooting and polo – are unaffected by such things as class, education or background. At a football match it doesn’t matter if you are high flying city stockbroker or a milkman. All that matters is which team you support and what goes on down on the pitch for ninety minutes. Then at the end of the day, regardless of where you are going home to, all that matters is who won and who lost.

Of course this doesn’t mean that we aren’t disappointed when we lose. We still want to win of course, to show that we are better than everyone else – especially as we invented most of these sports – but at the end of the day, as cliché as it sounds, it really is the taking part that counts.

Sport brings us together in a way that not much else can. It gives something solid, real and straightforward to invest our collective belief in. At the end of the day, whatever else happens, someone will win, someone will lose, and we’ll either be miserable or ecstatic. But whatever the result, for ninety minutes, or four or so hours, or however many sets, the country will be joined together, all believing in something, all able to forget the scandal and the austerity. And maybe in this current climate, we all need something to do that.

Education is not a Conveyor Belt

On Wednesday (26^th of March) the former Education Secretary, Lord Baker, gave a speech encouraging schools – especially primary schools – to develop closer links with local employers so that from an early age children will be able to get a better idea of jobs available to them.

I have to admit I like this idea, because if it works it will not only help young people gain a better idea of the variety of jobs out there (and like Lord Baker I must stress that I am not suggesting that children should know what they want to do with their life by the time they are eleven. I’m twenty two, and I am only just working out what I want to do), but it will help stop what I consider the conveyor belt nature of education.

At the risk of sounding like someone’s grandparent – again I am only twenty two - education is not what is used to be. It used to be about unlocking people’s potential. Helping them find their strengths and weaknesses and identify what career or industry would suit them best. At least that’s what we were told. Now it’s about “teaching to test”. We are stuck on the conveyor belt at an early age, and taught exactly what we need to know to pass our exams, no more, no less. We are ferried from school to sixth form and then onto university. We are taught that going on to university gives us the best opportunities in the world, despite the fact that an oversaturation of graduates has actually diluted the market. Those who do find jobs outside the conveyor belt tend to have found them on their own.

Education needs to broaden its parameters, and show children and young people that it takes all sorts to make a world. Just as we need writers and teachers and bank executives, we also need plumbers and chefs and police officers. There are plenty of jobs that don’t in fact require a degree and many of them, including the ones mentioned above, are important in keeping the world ticking over. But if people don’t know about them – and there are plenty of important but unrecognised jobs – then they aren’t going to look into them, and possibly find themselves with a fulfilling and interesting career.

While I accept the irony of this coming from a hopefully soon to be Bachelor of Arts, those in charge of education need to accept that having a degree and letters after your name is not all that matters. Not having a degree does not mean that you are stupid and those without one should not be looked down upon.  Education is about helping people to realise what their passions are and helping them come to a place where they can figure out what it is they really want to do with their life, even if it wasn’t what they imagined doing when they were ten. And if Lord Baker’s suggestions can make that happen, then I for one can be counted in favour. 

Listen to those Turbulent Priests

“Will nobody rid me of this turbulent priest” cried Henry II shortly before some knights got the wrong end of the stick and murdered Archbishop Thomas Beckett. I would imagine that similar sentiments are being expressed in and around Westminster right now.

But the thing is, when twenty seven Anglican bishops – including such heavy hitters as Mike Hill, the Bishop of Bristol, Michael Perham, the Bishop of Gloucester and Alan Smith, the Bishop of St Albans – a handful of Methodist chairs, representatives of the URC and the Quakers and the now Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster tell you that you are doing something wrong, especially when it comes to something like benefit reform, it’s probably best if you listen to them.

There is not one corner or acre of this country that the Church does not cover. Wherever you live you are in someone’s parish, and are someone’s responsibility, even if you have no faith. And if you need help, you can count on the Church to at least do something. To be honest, clergy know far more about the state of the country and how the government’s policies have affected everyday people than the MPs do themselves, and they are elected to know. Clergy are the ones down in the trenches, day in day out, providing everything from spiritual care to food banks. And with the floods the church has done even more to support their communities. Just ask the Bishop of Truro.

So when Church leaders tell you that the rise in the need for food banks is a sign that the Government’s policies are having an adverse effect on the population they are not just talking through their mitres. They know what they are talking about, and rather than dismissing them and trying to write them off as interfering busy bodies, the Government should listen to them, and maybe ask them what they can do better.

It’s very rare that the Church speaks out against the sitting government like it has this time. The last time was, oddly enough, through the Faith in the City report during the Margaret Thatcher era. What’s more, I don’t think Church leaders like getting involved. They would rather focus on the work to which they are called than act as a conscience to conscienceless governments. But that’s not the way it’s worked out. So now the Church is having to take a stand.

I very much doubt that the Coalition will listen. They think they know what they are doing, and they will continue to ignore these meddlesome clergy until they go away. But what they don’t understand is that they won’t go away. The Church in England has been around since the end of the 6^th century, while Parliament has only been around in its present form since 1801. The Church is far older, it has far more supporters, and if the Government thinks that by ignoring it, it will just shut up and go away, then they are in for a very big surprise.

Six Ways to help turn the Country Around

A credible government needs a credible opposition. Only by having someone who can say “No. You are wrong, this is how we can do that better” can a government claim some legitimacy. It means that someone is keeping an eye on them. It’s why dictatorships, usually remove all opposition. If there’s no one to tell you you are wrong, you can do what you like.

The problem is that in this country our opposition is no longer credible. Labour and the Conservatives long ago merged into one amorphous blob, each spouting off the same basic ideas. Oh there will be some key differences, but I think most people would agree that living under the coalition government doesn’t feel any different to living under the Blair/Brown governments.

What is needed is new ideas. Ideas that will, if put into place, change people’s lives for the better and, perhaps, get people voting again. These are the six things I think need to be considered by any future government.

1: Sort out the tax system.

This is probably the most important one. People are tired of those with the most money somehow getting away with paying the least amount of tax, either through loopholes or just an unfair tax system. This system needs to be completely rewritten, with all the loopholes closed, and it needs to be made clear that those with the most will pay their fair share.

2: NHS and Welfare

Our National Health Service and Welfare State, used to be things we were proud of and things no government would have dared touch. Free healthcare at point of entry and a system that helps those who need it most. Now the NHS is being sold off for profit and the welfare system is being stripped bare to pay for other things to the detriment of those who use it. We need to go back to the vision of Attlee and Bevan.

3: Local Government.

Local government is a mess. Too many different systems, too far removed from the people who use it. In fact I would be willing to bet most people can’t name their local councillor. We need a new system in place, with proper accountability, and useful devolved powers, so that local problems can be solved by local people, freeing up Westminster for the big things.

4; Industry

We used to make things and produce things and export things. Now everything occurs in cyberspace and we just move money about from one account to another. We need to bring industry – and in turn jobs – back to this country, so we can finally be proud of something other than the Square Mile.

5: Education

Our education system has simply become about fact retention, about learning exactly what you need to pass the exam and nothing else. We need to change that. We need to go back to learning for the sake of learning, and make sure that future generations leave school with real marketable skills and a thirst for more knowledge.

6: More democracy

We need to hold more referendums in this country. Not on everything, but on major issues. The government needs to be able to trust people and rather than thinking they know what’s best for us, ask us. Then act on what we tell them. That’s what representative democracy is supposed to be about.

None of these things will ever come to pass, of course. But if they did, we would finally have a country we could be proud of.

The Statistics Don't Match the Truth

American author Mark Twain once said that there are “three types of lies. Lies, damn lies and statistics”. This nifty little phrase certainly comes to mind today, when you see that the Institute of Fiscal Studies have accused the government of using dodgy stats to support their claims that living standards are going up.

I mean I accept that it can’t be easy for the Treasury or George Osborne. You come into office having to deal with the aftermath of a massive financial recession and you claim that your system of austerity and cuts will deal with it. Four years on, and a year before the next general election, you want to be able to show that you were right. And to an extent they have been. Their polices have bought about a certain level of economic growth – though having a former US Treasury Secretary tell you “Nice work, but you could have done better” can’t have been easy for Osborne – but you also want the statistics to back you up. If you can’t claim to have evidence that austerity works, you can’t campaign on it.

The problem is that the statistics don’t match up with the claims. Not only have the government been accused of fiddling the stats, but the real stats don’t support them. The other main report in the I last Saturday was that local councils are running out of money to support people hit hard by the Bedroom Tax, or as Cameron prefers to call it, the Spare Room Subsidy. On top of that the number of people and families using food banks and other forms of relief services has risen by 170% according to the Trussell Trust, with the Trust also predicting that up to a million people could end up using food banks in 2014. The reason for this? Benefits are being cut in order to make savings elsewhere. Such as for top tier tax cuts.

This government’s ideas haven’t worked, because at the end of the day they aren’t making cuts where they are necessary. While I am aware that driving big business away from the UK would potentially make the economic situation even worse, it seems that the Tories are more interested in making life easier for those in the Square Mile than anything else. And how do you find the money for top tier tax cuts? By slashing benefits and punishing those who don’t have the resources to fight back. By taking away money from those who need it most, without considering the consequences.

David Cameron ran for the Tory leadership in 2005 on a platform of dragging the party away from its Nasty Party roots. Has he done so? No. He has proved himself to be just as tied to the country squire, aristocratic, ethos as his predecessors. He has shown himself again and again to be out of touch with the needs of the people, with a limited understanding of what life is like for the non-Eton educated. The man who couldn’t even secure a Conservative majority has shown he doesn’t have what it takes to run this country.

And now he’s shown himself to be economical with the truth as well.

 

Smart Technology is the Way of the Future

In the latest episode of Sherlock, the master detective becomes convinced that the Napoleon of Blackmail, Charles Augustus Magnusson, has some sort of smart technology within his glasses that allows him to recall information on people, some sort of 4G remote wireless. While in the episode this belief turns out to be false, the technology for producing something like that is well within our grasp.

For example, Samsung has already produced, and Apple is about to produce, smart watches that can be connected to your phone. And smart glasses like in Sherlock are also on the way.  I am not entirely certain why this technology is necessary, but I am sure we are moving closer and closer towards the time when smart phones will have proven themselves obsolete.

The one thing all these new inventions share in common is that they are making use of the fact that technology is getting smaller. From having mobile phones the size of bricks we can now access our emails on our wrist, and the potential benefits of this new technology can be seen in areas such as health and defence.

A prime example of such benefits is Google’s latest innovation. They have recently announced the development of smart contact lenses for people with varying types of diabetes. Using tiny sensors, these lenses will detect the levels of glucose in a person’s tears and alert them to when they need to take their medicine. Currently, glucose levels have to be checked by doing a blood test, which is both painful and disruptive. Therefore, according to Google, people check their glucose levels less often than they should. With these lenses they do not have to worry, but simple pay attention when the sensors go ping.

Google’s smart contacts are currently only in the testing stage, and they still need to be approved by the FDA, but it is hoped that they will soon be rolled out into general use. However, the fact that it is Google that are investing in them tells you a lot about how useful (and potentially lucrative) this new type of technology may be.

The potential for this type of technology cannot be overestimated. If, for example, people could wear devices specifically tailored to keeping a track of their vital signs, then their doctors could pull their medical record off a watch, or glasses, or anything, and boom. They could just go ahead and treat them based on what they’ve read, thus saving both time and money.

Fans of Sci-Fi, especially Star Trek, have long marvelled at some of the technology available to the characters in those shows, including combadges that can track a person’s movements and vital signs. But just as smart phones have long since outstripped Star Trek’s portable communicators, so now it seems that in the field of combadges modern technology will once again outstrip its fictional counterpart.

It will probably be a long time before this type of technology is available on the mass market. But the fact that we are finally taking a step into the future is one that we should certainly be excited about.

Why not ask the Teachers?

Michael Gove is not a popular Education Secretary. The fact that he has been the subject of a vote of no confidence from both of the major teaching unions stands as a testament to this. But then again, this shouldn’t be surprising. Very few Education Secretaries are ever popular. And there’s a very simple reason for this.

Despite the fact that few - if any – Education Secretaries have actually been teachers, they seem to believe they know what’s better for teachers and schools than the teachers themselves.

This is something that has always confused me. I fail to understand why, as soon as a party takes power, or before then when they are writing their manifestoes, they start talking to think tanks and analysts and specialists and then come up with an education policy, rather than getting the teaching unions in a room, and going “Right. Other than better pay and less paperwork, what can we actually do to make education better? Tell us. You are the experts.”

Because they are. Someone who has been teaching for twenty years is far more likely to know what makes schools good and teaching easier than someone who worked for The Times before becoming an MP. It’s not rocket science, it’s just common sense.

This isn’t just true of the education system either. Want to know what’s best for the NHS? Why not ask the Doctors and the Nurses. As the people who spend their lives as part of it, they probably have a pretty good idea of what needs to happen in order to make it better. Get their opinions and not only will you have decent policy, but you will have their support when you come to announce it, something you can use as clout with the electorate.

Government, especially in the UK, is supposed to be representative. That’s why we are called a “representative democracy.” Our MPs represent the people and are apparently supposed to listen to what they have to say, and act accordingly. And yet, when it comes to forming policy, they never seem to be willing to listen. Rather, they go with what they think is the right thing to do, regardless of how many voices are screaming at them to stop and think and try again. Then they wonder at election time why nobody is happy with them, or with what they are doing.

If politicians are really keen to get people interested in politics again, then they need to make politics relevant, and, yes, representative. Rather than simply passing down commandments and policies from on high, they need to come down here with the rest of us, ask our opinions, get our views. And when they have them, they need to do something with them. Only then, will people truly believe that politicians have their best interests at heart, and only then will they feel comfortable getting involved with politics again. It’s not hard. They just need to start listening.