In last Saturday’s Times Mathew Parris took a critical look at our toleration of inefficiency in various aspect of our national life and the easy way people make apologies when things go badly wrong. People are very sorry and lessons will be learnt but then those who have made bad mistakes are allowed to carry …
In last Saturday’s Times Giles Coren suggested fitting a six-inch spike to the middle of steering wheels to force drivers to drive with greater care. Having survived cycling in and around London for some twenty years I can see his point but would suggest two related and more humane innovations that would not only preserve cyclists and pedestrians, but …
A row over free speech has erupted after a talk by alt-right journalist Milo Yiannopoulos, the controversial Trump supporter at his former school was cancelled over fear of protests. Parents and pupils have been angered by this censorship by a “counter extremism unit.” How much better it would have been for sixth-formers at Simon Langton Grammar School to …
An American exchange teacher at my school in the sixties addressed member of the staffroom and asked why it was that the UK did not get up-to-date, like the States, and elect a president to be head of state. There was a polite silence and then one of his hosts pointed out that we had …
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/history-and-the-royal-familys-secret-archives-77snzpsdq Sir, Toby Young’s call for business leaders to be made headteachers (report, Oct 29) should be rejected by teachers and parents. Young wants business leaders to apply their managerial experience to the running of schools — but schools are not businesses, which exist for the benefit of owners and shareholders. They are human institutions …
Business leaders should not be appointed to run schools – letter in The Times Read More »
In Monday’s Times Libby Purvis rightly concludes that the World Health Organisation has more important things to do than concern itself with people who seek medical intervention in order to become parents. However like many people who address matters concerning human reproduction she concerns herself with the rights of those who have choices, potential parents, rather …
Parents’ rights before children’s rights – yet again Read More »
It was unfortunate this week that a judge responded to a prisoner’s foul-mouthed and abusive language in court with a dose of the same. Elsewhere her response in kind might have shocked the man sufficiently to cause him to reflect on his behaviour, but in court? Robinson Crusoe, faced with an aggressive goat that he …
Schools that fail children are pilloried, handed over to new management or even closed down. Have the parents, all four of them, of these two girls been inconvenienced at all? Have they been required to explain their care of their daughters? Have they been asked, or even told that they will have to contribute in some …
Back in 1978 Prime Minister Edward Heath persuaded us that we were joining a free trade area then known as The Common Market. What he concealed from us was the intention to create a super-state. We are now returning, it could be said, to a position from which we could negotiate trade agreements and, who …
EU – Returning not leaving- another way to see the result of the referendum. Read More »
First I will contact friends in Spain, Italy, Germany and France to tell them that a vote to leave the EU is not anti-neighbour, nor anti-friend or anti-foreigner and that, whether or not we are in the EU we are still part of Europe – history and geography see to that. Secondly, I will contact my …
