Don't trip up

RSS Feed Homepage

Articles: 1, 2, 3, 4

An exercise in futility
2007-07-20 18:36:00
Labour have held onto their seats in both Ealing Southall and Sedgefield, whilst the Conservatives remain in third place, with a swing of less than a percent. The Liberal Democrats expanded their vote nicely (as they usually do in by-elections due to protests votes), and Brown will clearly be pleased by the results. Cameron really should have won more protest votes is he is to have any chance of winning the next election.The large Liberal Democrat swing (they gained 8.02 percentage points more than 2005) can mainly be put down to protest votes, many of which abandon them in a 'real' election where the consequences are taken more seriously. A by-election has little effect, so voters can 'safely' vote Liberal Democrat without endorsing them as a party of government or risking letting the Conservatives in via the back door. This swing will probably not be repeated at the next election, though it is still encouraging for the Liberal Democrats.However, if the swings of Ealing Southal...
More About: Exercise

More observation and more integrity please
2007-07-19 13:46:00
Ben Goldacre dismantles the recent scare story over MMR and autism that ran on the front page of The Observer. The original piece claimed:A study, as yet unpublished, shows that as many as one in 58 children may have some form of the condition, a lifelong disability that leads to many sufferers becoming isolated because they have trouble making friends and often display obsessional behaviour.Seven academics at Cambridge University, six of them from its renowned Autism Research Centre, undertook the research by studying children at local primary schools. Two of the academics, leaders in their field, privately believe that the surprisingly high figure may be linked to the use of the controversial MMR vaccine. That view is rejected by the rest of the team, including its leader, the renowned autism expert, Professor Simon Baron-Cohen.Goldacre dismantles these claims, analysing where its main claims actually came from and their scientific merit:This study is the perfect example of why th...
More About: Integrity , Lease , Ease

The profits of not going to war
2007-07-18 18:57:00
The maverick MP George Galloway is facing an eighteen day suspension from the House of Commons over his association with Saddam Hussein and the Oil-for-Food programme, reports The Times:George Galloway personally thanked Saddam Hussein for his regime’s financial backing in a campaign against sanctions on Iraq, and even asked him to raise the payments, according to a Commons report...The record was unearthed by Sir Philip Mawer, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, during a four-year inquiry into the Respect MP’s activities. As a result, Mr Galloway faces being suspended from the Commons for 18 sitting days...Mr Galloway, addressing Saddam as “Your Excellency”, tells him: “Mr Tariq Aziz has helped us with his contacts . . . But we are now suffering from the problem of the price of oil, which has resulted in a reduction in our income and delay in receiving our dues.”...After considering Sir Philip’s findings, a committee of senior MPs concluded that Mr Galloway ...
More About: Profits , Going , Goin

Caveat emptor
2007-07-17 19:39:00
Channel 4's FactCheck criticises the case for local food being better for the environment:Transporting food accounts for only a small proportion of the carbon dioxide emissions involved in producing it. And in some cases producing food far away and transporting it can be more efficient than producing it locally...But food miles certainly don't tell the whole story. Seasonality is important; eating apples when they're in season in Britain - in the autumn - will have a lower impact than eating them in the spring. In spring, apples will have either been imported or stored for long periods at low temperatures - which produces CO2.Likewise, people who really want to reduce their carbon footprint should consider eating less meat. Protein from meat generally has a larger footprint than vegetable protein, and methane produce...
More About: Caveat Emptor , Cave

In defence of liberty
2007-07-16 19:31:00
Stumbling and Mumbling has some suggestions on how to spread a more assertive liberalism amongst fundamentalists:So, we need to sell liberalism in a different way. Here are five suggestions:1. Liberalism is what people choose. Net migration flows are from fundamentalist societies to liberal ones. Some people think the UK has a problem of too many immigrants. No-one ever thought Afghanistan under the Taleban had that problem.2. Liberalism delivers the goods. You might reply that people come to the west for the money, not for the liberty. But the two go together. Liberal democratic societies are richer societies.3. Liberalism and wealth can promote virtue, as both Benjamin Friedman and Deirdre McCloskey argue. The notion that the west is decadent owes much to the salience heuristic - an excessive inference from Big Brother and advertising hoardings - rather than to a fuller assessment.4. Liberalism permits religious fundamentalism - you can go to church or mosque as often as you like...
More About: Liberty , Defence , Fence

Don't call an early election too soon
2007-07-15 22:35:00
The latest ICM poll has more encouragement for Gordon Brown and Labour. UK Polling Report describes the results of the Sunday Telegraph poll:An ICM poll for the Sunday Telegraph has voting intentions (with changes from the last ICM poll) of CON 33% (-2), LAB 40% (+3), LDEM 19% (+2). Far from the slight drop in the most recent ICM poll representing the end of Gordon Brown’s bounce, it has clearly continued to gather strength in the last week. The 7 point lead for Labour is the largest in an ICM poll since September 2005 and would presumably result in an increased majority if repeated at a general election. On the subject of which, the newspaper coverage of the polls is predictably in the context of whether a snap autumn election is now on the cards - I suspect this is rather too soon: we now have a better idea about the first question we should be asking ourselves about the Brown bounce - how high it will go (to a seven point Labour lead - at least), but still have no clue as to ho...
More About: Election , Early , Call , Earl

The hidden face of social democracy
2007-07-12 14:29:00
Matthew Yglesias is questioning the political influence of the great twentieth century political philosopher, John Rawls: Marc Ambinder, pondering the significance (if any) of Russel Kirk, remarks of John Rawls that "Liberals might not know much about him, but his writing and thinking underpin the modern Democratic Party theory of redistributive rights and expansive government." This is obviously a complicated issue, and I'm about to give it short shrift, but it's worth noting that the timing is wrong for Rawls to be politically influential.A Theory of Justice is published in 1971, after the key elements of the Great Society and the War on Poverty were already in place. The main progressive policy accomplishments of the post-TOJ era have tended to be remote from the concerns about the distribution of wealth and income that Marc is alluding to here. Yet Rawlsian theory is crucial to any politician who adheres to the Third Way or capitalist social democracy. Faith in modern c...
More About: Social , Democracy , Face , Hidden , Social Democracy

More school, less panic
2007-07-11 12:19:00
Last month, The Economist assessed Bryan Caplan's Myth of the Rational Voter (my original thoughts on Caplan's Wall Street Journal article here):ANYONE who follows an election campaign too closely will sometimes get the feeling that politicians think voters are idiots. A new book says they are. Or rather, Bryan Caplan, an economics professor at George Mason University, makes the slightly politer claim that voters systematically favour irrational policies. In a democracy, rational politicians give them what they (irrationally) want. In “The Myth of the Rational Voter”, Mr Caplan explains why this happens, why it matters and what we can do about it...But Mr Caplan says that politics is different because ignorant voters do not vote randomly.Instead, he identifies four biases that prompt voters systematically to demand policies that make them worse off. First, people do not understand how the pursuit of private profits often yields public benefits: they have an anti-market bias. S...
More About: School , Panic

Liberty on the seven seas
2007-07-10 20:54:00
A recent paper on the 'Pirates' Code' lends weight to Lockean views of human nature:Leeson is fascinated by pirates because they flourished outside the state—and, therefore, outside the law. They could not count on higher authorities to insure that people would live up to promises or obey rules. Unlike the Mafia, pirates were not bound by ethnic or family ties; crews were as remarkably diverse as in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” films. Nor were they held together primarily by violence; while pirates did conscript some crew members, many volunteered. More strikingly, pirate ships were governed by what amounted to simple constitutions that, in greater or lesser detail, laid out the rights and duties of crewmen, rules for the handling of disputes, and incentive and insurance payments to insure that crewmen would act bravely in battle...As a result, Leeson argues, pirate ships developed models that in many ways anticipated those of later Western democracies. First, pirates ado...
More About: Liberty , Seven Seas , Seas

Abandon all hope, all ye who are left
2007-07-10 16:17:00
Bronwen Maddox assesses the mood in Baghdad and Washington in The Times:The Republican support for US troops in Iraq is falling apart even more quickly than the Iraqi Government itself. It is no surprise that a sketch is taking shape in Washington for a “half-exit” for US forces...For more than a year, the US has been giving al-Maliki the benefit of the doubt, preferring to think that he could not push through reforms, not that he would not. It is now hard not to conclude that he won’t.Yet few senators are going to push for a full withdrawal. The US cannot afford to leave completely, abandoning Iraq to its neighbours and al-Qaeda. A tempting answer, and one being studied, is to cut troop levels and to focus on al-Qaeda, as well as securing the borders.That would help to deter Iraq’s neighbours, Arab as well as Persian, from filling the vacuum. But it would leave even more security, including in Baghdad, to unreliable Iraqi forces. It would not be a pullout, but it would be a...
More About: Hope , Left , Abandon

Policy is primary
2007-07-09 17:39:00
As if to emphasise the transition between Blair and Brown, The Times is running stories that starkly contrast the Blair and Brown era. Their coverage of the Campbell diaries paint a story of fist fights:Tony Blair's two closest advisers once came to blows in a row over what he should wear to do a doorstep appearance, Alastair Campbell's diary reveals.Mr Blair was forced to pull Peter Mandelson and Mr Campbell apart "like a dad trying to shush two squabbling brothers", the former No 10 communications director writes.And paranoia:On February 17 2001, Mr Campbell records that Mr Brown's supporters were upset when Mr Blair authorised an airstrike in Iraq on a day when Mr Brown was due to make an announcement. "His disciples seem to think we had deliberately bombed Iraq as a way of minimising coverage," notes Mr Campbell.The final act of the Spinmaster General of the Blair era is to paint Brown rather poorly, despite his omission of anything directly related to him. Dissent across the...
More About: Policy , Primary , Prima , Poli , Prim

If his words fail his actions need to bellow
2007-07-08 16:43:00
UK Polling Report looks back at the bounce achieved when Eden, Macmillan, Douglas-Home, and Callaghan took over as Prime Minister, attempting to find any trends that might indicate the future of Gordon Brown:So what does history tell us? Unfortunately we have both scenarios in the past - in 1963 there was a change of leader that seemed to result in the Conservative government gaining support, and then continuing to get more and more popular with a new hand on the tiller. In 1990 we have a new Prime Minister taking over, receiving a huge jump in the polls and enjoying a honeymoon that stretched well into the following year, albeit one helped by a successful war. In 1976 we have a new Prime Minister taking over, enjoying a jump in the polls that once again put their party into the lead, but seeing it rapidly disappear again the very next month. It’s still impossible to say what sort of pattern Gordon Brown’s boost will follow.Politics is too complex for a simpler conclusion to be ...
More About: Words , S word , Bello

Gin and Tonic - the secret behind global warming?
2007-07-07 21:02:00
Tom Utley, writing last year in The Daily Mail, makes appears to make an intuitive case against climate change, which can be repeated in Gentlemen's Clubs across the country:HERE'S something that's been puzzling me for a long time, and perhaps a kind reader will help me out. Pour yourself a gin and tonic, almost to the top of the glass. Then put in enough ice to take the level of the liquid to the very brim. Now the difficult bit: fight the temptation to take a slurp, and just sit and watch while the ice melts. Does the liquid overflow? I think not.But that's not what's puzzling me. You don't have to be a great physicist to grasp what Archimedes was on about when he had his Eureka moment in the bath and came up with the principles of water displacement and buoyancy. The floating ice in the drink displaces its own weight in gin and tonic -- and so, as it melts, the level of liquid in the glass stays the same.Ignoring the fact that Utley is wrong about ice in water anyway (the l...
More About: Global Warming , Global , The Secret , Secret , Tonic

Who has got the money?
2007-07-07 18:15:00
46 universities and colleges may be facing financial collapse, reports The Guardian:Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act name for the first time 46 institutions which the government feared could collapse even after the introduction of tuition fees boosted university funding.The institutions, largely ex-polytechnics, affect hundreds of thousands of students and include large universities such as London South Bank University, Greenwich University and Liverpool John Moores University. Queen Mary, University of London, is also listed.The papers catalogue institutions struggling to recruit students, control their spending and forced into mergers to prevent them going under...But the Guardian has discovered that three institutions are still deemed so "at risk" that officials are still withholding their names and more are being monitored because they are under threat unless they act. That list is known to include Thames Valley University.This highlights the growing probl...
More About: Money

Send in the troops, the ballot boxes, and the World Bank
2007-07-06 01:11:00
Michael J. Gerson, writing in The Washington Post, accurately describes Tony Blair's foreign policy and its liberal intentions:More than that of any other world leader, Blair’s foreign policy approach is a rigorous, logical argument. Like advancements in communications and the global economy, political challenges, Blair contends, have “immediate impact, an ability to cross frontiers.” Irresponsible and failing states become bases of operation for terrorist, crime and drug syndicates. This chaos is tamed, in his view, by promoting economic development, treating killer diseases, fighting global warming and achieving peace in the Middle East — an agenda of exhausting idealism. “Justice,” he says, “is the thing that is most powerful in its appeal to people.”But Blair’s liberalism not only purrs, it bites. When distant chaos grows too intense and threatening, Blair has advocated military interventions from Kosovo to Sierra Leone to Afghanistan to Iraq.His muscular inte...
More About: World , World Bank , The World , The World Bank , Troops

Independently cooling
2007-07-05 18:45:00
As the Bank of England unsurprisingly increases the base rate to 5.75 per cent, Gary Duncan in The Times defends their decision: If it had to be done, then it was right for the Bank of England to waste no time and to press ahead with the necessary action...It was already apparent that a further turn of the screw was needed, both as a precaution to ensure that the Bank’s inflation target is met and to entrench the MPC’s credibility...Today’s rate rise will apply another touch on the brakes that should be sufficient to ensure that the Bank can be reasonably confident of having quashed inflation risks — and that its target will be hit with its hard-won credibility still intact.Keeping inflation under control is more important than keeping indebted home owners happy, which is why the Bank of England was given the independence to make these kinds of decisions. It should help reduce spending, which will help bring inflation down and ensure the 2 per cent target is met, cooling the...
More About: Cooling , Epen , Dependent

Dr. Death
2007-07-04 16:35:00
Following the hysterical reactions over the professions of the would-be terrorists who attacked Glasgow and London, Brown is promising a review of NHS recruitment procedures, reports The Times: Gordon Brown announced an urgent review of NHS recruitment after news that all eight suspects arrested after failed car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow were either doctors or in related medical jobs...He added that there would be an "immediate review" of NHS recruitment after the discovery that a number of doctors had been arrested in connection with the bomb plot...The majority of those held are linked to the NHS as doctors or trainee doctors while the only woman arrested is a trained laboratory technician.This seems to stem from the sense of shock that medical professionals could be terrorists. There is no logical reason to be shocked by this - the threat faced by Britain is one which could include many different professionals of differing origins. They could be British born or migrants,...
More About: Death

Less rhetoric, more research
2007-07-03 16:57:00
Stephen Pollard, writing in The Times, attacks Brown and Cameron for their lack of action over demographics and pensions:What makes the sterility of the argument over public services all the more ridiculous is that none of this need be a problem. If, instead of using taxes to fund services on a “pay as you go” basis, we (to use the jargon) used funded financing, where money is invested throughout people’s working life, the demographic equation would be irrelevant.By saving a fraction of our earnings each year, the weight of those repeated contributions to the principal, plus the interest earned on them, would accumulate by retirement to a capital sum sufficient to buy an annuity, or even a perpetual income, that would cover the pension and other costs of old age – including ill-health and chronic conditions such as heart disease and cancer.Instead of society and each individual facing a financial crisis as we age, we would each save for our own protection, with the State ste...
More About: Research

The end is no end
2007-07-02 16:38:00
The Times speculates on how Brown's new Cabinet is going down in Washington:Mrs Beckett was subsequently replaced by David Miliband, who is known to harbour doubts over the Iraq war. Last year he intervened in a Cabinet meeting to question why Britain was not taking a stronger position against Israel’s military action in Lebanon.The White House will have noted also the appointment last week of John Denham, who resigned from government over the Iraq war, and Harriet Harman, Labour’s new deputy leader, who has suggested that the party apologise for supporting the invasion...Figures close to the Bush Administration say that they have been encouraged by the general tenor of Mr Brown’s remarks towards the US and that they understand his need to “play the domestic political game” by demonstrating a degree of independence. But even the limited and coded signals from Mr Brown in the past week are a significant departure from the attitude of Mr Blair, who maintained an intense emb...

A clean slate
2007-07-01 15:31:00
Bronwen Maddox, writing in The Times, is enthusiastic about David Miliband's future at the Foreign Office:Brown and Miliband are spared current crises, Iraq apart, but there are a few potential horrors that would benefit from Miliband’s intelligence and his unusually good judgment of tone...Miliband’s thoughtfulness will be an asset. He gauged the right tone of voice for the floods in Britain this week: not exaggerating, but not making light of people’s suffering. Nor did he rush to blame global warming. Those are rare qualities (particularly the restraint about climate change) and are likely to prove hugely valuable in King Charles Street.The "potential horrors" she identifies are not Iraq (where the current strategy will do), Afghanistan (problems are a couple of years away), or Europe (where Brown can be strong). They are Pakistan, Iran, and Hamas.The Foreign Office would certainly be in a strong position with regards any crises in these areas. They are not major politicis...
More About: Clean , Slate

Let us be rational not British
2007-06-29 19:05:00
Much has been written about the intellectual credentials of Britain's new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. More intellectually robust than Blair, Brown is meant to be well-read on all things political. Yet beyond the simple claim that Brown reads a lot and knows his politics, not much is written about who he reads. Prospect has an article on just that, with some insights into the type of ideals he is likely to aspire to and the type of man he is.Prospect paints an image of Brown as very much the product of the British Enlightenment with a strong affinity for another famous son of Kirkcaldy, Adam Smith. His economics are indeed neoliberal, but it is the second half of the article that is more interesting:Brown's largest recent foray beyond his economic and social policy brief has been his speeches and articles on Britishness. Here, he has typically cast his net so wide as to catch almost all the significant contemporary commentators, thinkers and writers on the issue.... From these ...
More About: Rational

The changing of the guard
2007-06-28 18:27:00
Brown has announced his first Cabinet, reports The Times. There were a few surprises but nothing revolutionary, with elements of continuity alongside the break with the Blair Cabinets. The full list is:Jacqui Smith: Home SecretaryDavid Miliband: Foreign SecretaryAlistair Darling: Chan cellor of the ExchequerAlan Johnson: Health SecretaryJack Straw: Justice SecretaryBaroness Scotland: Attorney GeneralEd Balls: Children, Schools and Families SecretaryYvette Cooper: Housing MinisterJohn Denham: Innovation, Universities and Skills SecretaryDouglas Alexander: International Development SecretaryRuth Kelly: Transport SecretaryHazel Blears: Communities and Local Government SecretaryJames Purnell: Culture SecretaryHilary Benn: Environment SecretaryJohn Hutton: Business and Enterprise SecretaryEd Miliband: Cabinet OfficeGeoff Hoon: Chief WhipPeter Hain: Work and Pensions SecretaryAndy Burnham: Chief Secretary to the TreasuryBaroness Ashton: Leader of the LordsDes Browne: Defense Secretary and ...
More About: Changing , Guard , Chang , The G

The King is dead. Long live the King!
2007-06-27 16:28:00
Gordon Brown has now taken over as British Prime Minister following the resignation of Tony Blair this afternoon. During his last Prime Minister's Questions, Tony Blair was warmly received, stating:people "stood tall" in politics and said if, on occasion, the Comm+ons [sic] was a place of "low skulduggery" it was also the place of the "pursuit of noble causes".He added that he wished everyone "friend or foe" well, and got a standing ovation; an unprecedented scene, Tory leader David Cameron urged his Conservatives to join.It was no day for partisan politics, and everyone seemed to accept Blair has always done what he felt was right and noble, just like all politicians. That is worth remembering in the coming months when Cameron and Brown will face off every Wednesday and the respect of today will quickly be forgotten.All eyes are now on Gordon Brown, the new occupant of Number 10:Posing outside No 10 with wife Sarah, the man who has been Tony Blair's chancellor for the past 10 yea...
More About: The King , Live , Dead , King , Long

Read your Burke, Mr. Cameron
2007-06-26 18:16:00
David Cameron is showing himself to be a flagrant opportunist by ignoring British constitutional convention in his twin call from a referendum and an early election. The reason he wants Brown to allow the public to vote is purely political - he wants to give Brown a bloody nose and prove his 'reforms' of the Conservative Party have be successful.David Aaronvitch, writing in The Times, explains how referenda are rather rare things in British politics: Well, Labour may have promised a referendum, but I never did, and – looked at as dispassionately as I can manage – it’s pretty obvious that we don’t need one. First let me reiterate the point that we don’t hold referendums on much in this country. In my lifetime I have voted in two – in 1975 on EC membership and in London on whether we should have a mayor. Since then we have had sundry wars, mass Eastern European immigration, Bank of England independence, several Conservative European treaties, the incorporation of the Hum...
More About: Read , Amero

Muddy diversion
2007-06-20 00:26:00
I will not be blogging for the next few days, as I will be at Glastonbury. Normal service should resume on Tuesday, assuming I recover.
More About: Diver , Version , Dive , Diversion , Muddy

Same old book, new cover
2007-06-18 21:29:00
A Populus poll, commissioned by The Times, reveals the shallowness of Cameron's 'reforms' of the Conservative Party:A striking new survey by Populus about the attitudes of MPs reveals not only deep underlying disagreements between Labour and Conservative MPs on key social values, but also big divisions within the Tory party. David Cameron has failed to persuade a large number of his own backbenchers to accept his liberal views on morality and race....By contrast, on several key questions Tory MPs are deeply divided. For instance, against the view of Mr Cameron, just 46 per cent of Tory MPs agree that gay couples should have the same rights as heterosexual couples, with 54 per cent disagreeing....Similarly, there is a 52 to 48 per cent split among Tories on whether “the diverse mix of races, cultures and religions now found in our society has improved Britain”. ... And while Labour MPs are virtually unanimous (94 per cent) in agreeing that “one of the things...
More About: Book , Cover , Same

Leave Blairism to the professionals
2007-05-31 20:53:00
The Conservatives are painting themselves red, reports The Guardian:George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, today claimed that the Conservative party is the heir to Tony Blair's reforms of hospitals and schools, not Gordon Brown.In a speech in London, Mr Osborne said Mr Brown was "lurching to the left" while the Conservatives were more in tune with Mr Blair's plans to give greater freedom to public service bosses and more choice to users of public services....Mr Cameron has reportedly described himself in the past in private as the "heir to Blair", though in public has reassured core Tory supporters saying he has "real substance" and will learn from the prime minister's mistakes.Supporting Blairism is fine, and if the Conservatives want to endorse his Third Way they are free to do so (though it would be nice if they came up with something original, plagiarism is looked down on by most). However there are two problems with endorsing a Blairite consensus.The first is that Gordon B...
More About: Leave , Sion , Professional , Lair , Professionals

Ample choice, meagre thinking
2007-05-30 15:35:00
The Deputy Leadership candidates hold differing views on redistribution, reports The Times in its succinct summary of their views:Ms Harman, the Justice Minister, said: “We are not just worried about where the bottom is in terms of poverty. We are worried about the gap with rich and poor. You can’t have proper equality of opportunity with a huge gap between rich and poor. Do we want to be a divided society where some people struggle and others spend £10,000 on a handbag?” She was looking for the revival of a royal commission on equality to look at the issue.As I wrote the other day, equality of opportunity is not about taxing people who spend "£10,000 on a handbag", it is about ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to fulfill their potential. In a real meritocracy, anyone with the ability will be able to afford an expensive handbag. Ms Harman is right to seek the help those who struggle, as there should be a minimum safety net. Focus on reducing poverty, and leave ...
More About: Choice , Thinking , Choi

Hanging is so passé
2007-05-29 18:14:00
Peter Hitchens writes some real nonsense in The Guardian today:How impossible it is to believe that several members of a Labour cabinet once voted to retain hanging, that the best speech against the Common Market ever delivered was made by a Labour leader, or that the most dogged opposition to legal abortion came from the Labour MPs from Bootle and Preston South. And yet these things were so. The Labour party used to have a real right wing, patriotic and socially and morally conservative.That faction has ceased to exist. It was destroyed by the creation of the Social Democratic party, by the purges that followed Labour's 1980s constitutional revolution and by the end of the cold war.Kinnockism and Blairism were both merely tactical shifts by the left. Kinnock's failed. Blair's only succeeded because the collapse of the USSR robbed the Tories of their claim to be the only reliable defenders of national security. It also undermined the belief that socialism could or should be achie...
More About: Pass

You're not fooling anybody, Mr Cameron
2007-05-28 18:13:00
Cameron is continuing to exaggerate the dropping of Conservative support for grammar schools, reports The Times:David Cameron looks set to fire a member of his front bench who spoke out in defence of grammar schools in The Times today.Graham Brady, the Europe spokesman, was “severely reprimanded” by the Tory Party chief whip after he produced data in which suggested grammar schools improve the results of entire neighbourhoods.Mr Brady suggested that selection at 11 raises GCSE standards for everyone in the area, especially ethnic minority children. This came a day after Mr Cameron called critics of his refusal to bring back grammar schools "inverse class warriors".A Tory source said that Mr Cameron “hit the roof” over the comments by Mr Brady....A spokeswoman for Mr Cameron said: “Graham has been severely reprimanded by the Chief Whip and told to stick to his brief.”Mr Brady is now expected to lose his portfolio in next month’s reshuffle....The announcemen...
More About: Cameron , Amero