Tag Archives: The Guardian

Martin Kettle: when UK commentators get it wrong about the EU

Martin Kettle has penned a piece in today’s Guardian entitled “Greece, Schengen, Nato – it’s time to admit the European dream is over“. It’s the latest in a series of pieces that are appearing a lot in the UK press at the moment – whatever the UK’s own headaches about the deficit, cuts etc., we can look on smugly from the side. If the European dream crumbles, well, so be it, because it was never a dream really, was it.

The person who gives Kettle assurance for his contention that the dream is over is Stephen Wall, former UK Permanent Representative and Head of the Cabinet Office European Secretariat. Wall undoubtedly knows a lot about European integration, but I have consistently had problems with his approach, for he gives the impression that the role of citizens in the whole thing are nothing but an annoyance – it’s about the EU being in the UK’s national and, for him, administrative interest. Functionalism. How that in any way is a European ‘dream’ is beyond me.

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Black male head teachers: bad numbers indicate a problem, but can’t determine what that problem is

“Black male headteachers in Britain’s state schools number just 30” is the startling headline on The Guardian’s website, and on the side of the front page of today’s printed paper. There are 127 female heads too, meaning that – in total – 0.7% of headteachers in the UK are black, while 2% of the population is black. The first paragraph of the story claims this is due to “institutional racism”, actually taking words from an Essex headteacher later in the story.

Hold on a moment. I don’t deny that these numbers are not good, and need to increase, but is the cause so drastic?

Think for a moment about the path to becoming a head teacher. For a start you almost certainly need a university degree. Then you need to work for a long period of time as a teacher, rising up through the ranks. You’re going to have needed to have entered university at least 15 years ago, probably more than that, at a time when fewer people studied, and access to university education was even more restricted to the middle classes than it is now. Historic economic disadvantage for black people in the UK would mean a lower percentage studied, a lower percentage graduated, became teachers etc.

In short it looks to me like this is another example of the newspapers taking the numbers and telling a story only on that basis, without additional context, in the same way as was done over Oxbridge entrance and taken apart by Mark Pack here.

Don’t get me wrong – this is a problem, it needs to be addressed, and there might be some institutional racism. But there are probably many more longer term, more mundane, less headline-grabbing factors too.

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Why “dealing with inequality” and “class war” are not to be used interchangeably

“Harriet Harman puts class at heart of election battle” screamed the headline of The Guardian’s online version this morning. The sub header was a more measured “Labour deputy leader to make inequality a key dividing line with the Conservatives“. One of the quotes from Harman’s speech about the issue is: “Persistent inequality of socio-economic status – of class – overarches the discrimination or disadvantage that can come from your gender, race or disability.” This I find maddening.

If you read Harman’s words purely in terms of the economic interpretation of class her argument makes sense. But for me and for so many others the word ‘class’ rankles at a sociological level.

I’m by any definition middle class – 2 university degrees, working in tertiary industry etc. – and the same could be said for my mother, a teacher, who enjoys bourgeois pursuits such as regular visits to plays at Stratford and the Hay Festival. That doesn’t however stop her banging on about how her ‘working class roots’ are so vital to her. Essentially for her and many others the word ‘class’ is not purely economic, it is also social, and surveys tend to prove this in the UK.

Where Harman does have a point is to do with inequality. The gaping inequality in the UK economy is clear to see everywhere, from the idiocy where it’s viable to have armies of low paid workers handing out free newspapers to well paid commuters, to the dreadful condition of UK social housing. Wilkinson and Pickett’s landmark work The Spirit Level gives dozens of reasons why more equal societies almost always do better and – importantly – these benefits are not only confined to the poorer people in society. Even the richer groups in society benefit from safer streets, better life expectancy etc.

So, in short, “dealing with inequality” and “class war” (or words of that nature) must not be used interchangeably. Labour needs to promote a vision of a more equal, more fair, more inclusive society and – importantly – have policies that can actually deliver that. For the many, not the few as the 1997 line so aptly put it. Recourse to talking about class takes the focus of true inequality and pits one part of society against another, and that’s absolutely not what Labour should be doing. Just look at what happened in Crewe.

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Just to make it crystal clear: these Eurostar problems are not unprecedented

Over the last 48 hours there has been much searching for the root of the problems Eurostar has been facing. There has been plenty of human incompetence for sure, but at the start the trains were at fault. I’ve consistently been tweeting that the problems are not unprecedented and have indeed been encountered before, and now I have managed to dig up the evidence – this 2003 story from The Guardian:

Trains running in freezing temperatures lost power as they hit warm, humid air in the Channel Tunnel yesterday causing them to break down, a Eurostar spokesman said.

Condensation formed on the trains when the cold engines entered the tunnel where the air was much warmer – about 28C (82F) – hampering electrical systems, according to the official. “It knocks out the overhead electrical supply,” he said.

It’s exactly the same problem as now, only in reverse (i.e. that time the trains were going UK-France, rather than France-UK). Why then does The Guardian stick a piece on its website today saying:

Specialist engineers are still uncertain exactly why Eurostar’s usually trouble-free trains failed so disastrously, after running unaffected in previous cold snaps. The firm blamed the sudden contrast for the high speed engines between freezing temperatures above ground and the heat of the tunnel. [...]

“It’s all a bit of a mystery and the company, and indeed a lot of people, appear baffled by it,” said Nigel Harris, managing editor of Rail magazine. “But the fact that the problem has affected London-bound trains rather than ones leaving St Pancras may have been due to the fact that those heading away from London have less time to get cold.

What a load of crap. Why did no-one at The Guardian think to look at their back issues? And clearly Nigel Harris doesn’t have a clue either. OK, in 2003 HSL 1 was not open, but the problem has happened the other way around, and for sure is not unprecedented. This of course has not stopped The Independent running a story in a similar vein – and it’s even currently the most read article on The Independent’s website, and part of it is wrong.

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Polly Toynbee on Sweden again

Polly Toynbee is on about Sweden again in her column in The Guardian today – read it here. The column is not her best argued effort, but this did make me smile:

No, Brown will not turn Swedish in one spasm. It took the Social Democrats nearly 70 unbroken years of steady progressive government to reach this civilised state of relative equality, high living standards, excellent public services – and high happiness ratings.

The idea of Gordon Brown turing into a Swede is quite amusing… He sure has the portly figure of a retired ice hockey player, and is probably grumpy enough to come from the North somewhere!

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