The count-out begins

Over the past week two heavyweights of British politics faced off against each other, again, and again, and again. Gove threw the first punch, kick starting a match off  that is sure to continue throughout the duration of this parliament.

Ladies and gentlemen, this week’s main event. In the blue (and slightly yellow) corner, the elected representative from Surrey Heath; MP since 2005; the Secretary of State for Education…Michael ‘The Cleaner’ Gove! In the red corner, the elected representative from Morley and Outwood (Just); MP since 2005…Ed ‘Spender’ Balls; brought to you by the people of Great Britain, in association with the Lib Dems…Lets get ready to crumble!!!!!

Round One – Last Monday saw Gove land the first knock down after he announced that he was axing the BSF programme. Although it wasn’t a knock down that was entirely unexpected by Balls and his team, he was still sent reeling from the loss of his Education legacy. Gove wins the fist round; Gove 10 – 8 Balls

Round Two – However, Balls was soon up off the canvas as he started throwing some counter attacking punches on Newsnight that very evening. Gove almost went down as Balls came in with a crunching uppercut. An uppercut that was delivered not from his own hands but that of the Permanent Secretary for Education. That afternoon, Balls had received an apology from the secretary over claims that Gove had made during the announcement in the House that afternoon. Bewildered by this assault, Gove was left blinking, his eyes stinging from the pain that surged through his body from this winding body blow. However, the wiley Scotsman wasn’t finished, he countered with the charge that Balls had made a large mess and he was cleaning it up. These two seemed to throw counter punch after counter punch at each other until Paxman, the ever vigilant referee, broke them apart as the bell sounded. Both fighters landed some strong blows in that round so honours even; Gove 10-10 Balls

Round Three – After a motivating pep talk from his corner, Balls came out swinging at the sound of the bell. It turned out that he didn’t need to. In a strange twist, Gove had spent the interval punching himself in the head with the assistance of his own corner. Gove now lay withering on the canvas…Balls, arms aloft, danced around the media outlets claiming victory. Gove was all but out, the countout was ringing in his ears…members of his own corner were baying for his blood…Gove, however, was saved by the bell. Balls storms round three; Gove 8 – 10 Balls

Round Four – Firing on all cylinders now, Balls jumps from his stool as the bell sounds, pumped up, scenting blood. He charges into the ring and demands an apology, which Gove feels like a right cross slamming into his jaw. For a full 30mins Gove stands, Rockyesque, as punches are thrown and land like hammer blows to his coalitions…spurned on by the few remaining voices of support from his blue corner, the voices from the red corner fail to land the killer haymaker. Once again Gove survives and staggers back to his corner. Balls wins the fourth round; Gove 8 – 10 Balls

Round Five – Nothing round really. Balls and his red corner, dance around, slightly tired from their unrelenting attacks of the previous rounds. Gove hides in the corner occasionally sticking his neck out to apologise once again. Both opponents feeling the pace; Gove 10 – 10 Balls

Round Six – Has Gove been using the risky Rope-a-Dope strategy? Well just when it looks like he could be down and out, punched out, ready to throw the towel in, he delves deep and finds something. He looks into the stands as he sits, waiting on his bench, he sees a mystical figure, he cries out through bloodied lips CAMERON!! What was said could only be conjecture, it seemed to do the trick, Gove came out of his corner, cocked locked and ready to rock! Gove lived up to his name to land a few killer blows of his own. Every charge that was thrown at him he ducked with ‘it’s all their fault’. With every tired punch he countered with ‘it’s all your mess’. When it came to blocking those haymaker punches he simply held his guard up high to his face and proclaimed ‘you left us with no choice’. An Ali like recovery; Gove 10 – 9 Balls (Gove 57 – 58 Balls)

The fight will continue but as it stands Balls is ahead by one point. Who are the real winners of all this political sparring? Sadly I don’t think it’s parents, teachers, building contractors and most importantly children. Some will argue that the BSF programme was highly bureaucratic and riddled with over spends. However, most will argue that the end justifies the means. Value for money shouldn’t come in to it.

The BSF programme leaked money not because it was a bad idea, it leaked money because it was badly managed. If a school starts to fail because it’s badly managed, you get rid of the Head teacher and you employ someone who can get the school back on track. You don’t simply close the school and say everything about it was failing. What better way to prove that the previous government weren’t up to the job?

We all know that Gove has cancelled BSF for ideological and political reasons. The money that he will save will go towards funding his ‘Free School’ project. It mustn’t come as a surprise that on the list of cancelled projects, academies don’t feel the same level of disappointment as state controlled secondary schools. Once Gove has managed to divert all funding to his pet projects, and as a consequence state controlled schools fall even further behind, he can sit back in his blue corner and pontificate about how successful his ideas were.

Sadly I feel that cancelling the BSF programme was the real and hardest felt haymaker thrown this week. It knocked state education to the canvas, the countdown began, and unless we help it back to its feet, the fight could now nearly be over.

What’s in a name?

Juliet:
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”

Romeo & Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

This got me thinking, what is in a name? Do our names reflect our personalities? Do our names make us predisposed to certain actions, to certain ways of thinking, political ideologies even? For instance if you look up the meaning of the word ‘Gove’ (Michael), it means ‘A mow‘. Look up the word ‘Mow‘ and you receive this rather ironic meaning;

‘mow 1 |mō|verb ( past part. mowed or mown |mōn|) [ trans. ]cut down with a machine’

‘cut down with a machine’…well that is what a lot of teachers, parents, students, building contractors & architects were screaming yesterday after his needless dismantling of the BSF programme.

Lets try again, if you look up the word conservative in the dictionary the first description happens to be, ‘disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.’ We also get, ‘having the power or tendency to conserve’ The problem here appears to be that the current Conservative party wants to be all things to all people, it wants to ‘limit change’ while actually proclaiming the opposite; and on the matter of having the ‘tendency to conserve’, well it doesn’t seem that interested in conserving any jobs at the moment.

So lets take a closer look at some other names and their meanings;

Liberal – ‘willingness to give-in large amounts‘  – they have certainly done this. The tories are always stating what influence the Lib Dems have had on the shaping of policy but have they really? Cleggs statement on the referendum for voting reform is a case in point. For as long as I can remember the Lib Dems have been banging on about ‘Proportional Representation’. Now they are willing to compromise and take a new voting system that is the weakest, watered down form of voting reform available. They argue of course that it’s the only deal they could get. By that thinking the next time anyone buys a car we should just take any deal offered to us because at least that way it’s a deal…no matter what ramifications that deal may have.

Labour – ‘productive activity, esp. for the sake of economic gain’ or ‘to act, behave, or function at a disadvantage’ or ‘to burden or tire’ – all three of these meanings could be levelled at the current and previous incantations of the Labour movement/party. They certainly went into government with productive activities for the sake of the country’s economic gain (New deal, Minimum Wage, etc). They have always been hampered or have always had to function at a disadvantage due to the nature of the class system that is still prevalent in the country. Finally no-one could argue that they became burdened and they certainly began to tire.

Cameron – ‘one who had a wry nose’ – On the face of it this is quite amusing…however, if we look up the meaning of the word ‘Wry’, the trend continues. ‘Wry’ means ‘devious in course or purpose; misdirected; contrary; perverse; distorted or perverted, as in meaning and finally bitterly or disdainfully ironic or amusing‘. The disdainfully ironic thing being that Cameron seems to leak every inch of these descriptions. His policies are seen to be devious in course, his ideology is misdirected, contrary to what the public really wants, his party’s mandate to govern is a perversion of our political system, he has distorted and perverted the Lib Dems into his thinking through the purchase of their souls for the mere hint of power.

Clegg -‘one who came from, or lived near Clough (dweller at a hollow or ravine) – Clegg came from or was a dweller of a ravine and that is right where he has left his party. Sadly for the Lib Dems they have been led down a ravine that has now had its natural entrance and exit cut off by the Conservatives. The only way out for them is to climb the steep slopes of mounting public condemnation of their machiavellian pursuit of power.

In all honesty these names are meaningless, no logical free thinking person believes that the decisions that we take are determined by our given names. It could all work out well in the end…someone said to me today that it doesn’t matter that schools aren’t going to be rebuilt because ‘people make a difference  not buildings’. I suppose he was right, however, buildings and facilities aid a students self worth. When walls fall down they need to be fixed, that money needs to come from somewhere, inevitably it will come from monies earmarked for text books, computers, etc.

Martin Buber said ‘The real struggle is not between capitalism and communism, but between education and propaganda.’ – We all need to look past the propaganda and educate ourselves to the true cost of cutting education.