lord of the blog

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Saturday, July 30, 2005

school discipline

I am sympathetic to the comment posted by Andrewmb on school discipline but it is difficult to persuade parents to send their children to schools in order to get a good cross section of pupils. The old GLC did manage it but the system was breaking down as more parents sent their children to private schools.

I think it is possible to maintain good standards in all schools although I don't underestimate the burden we put on teachers in order to achieve this. When I was an MP Hammersmith County became a failing school. It was turned round by a combined effort of the Council, the Board of Governors and the Government pouring large sums of money into it.

A new head teacher was recruited, William Atkinson, and the school renamed Phoenix High. It is now doing pretty well. Local people were amazed when the Head went to shops and houses asking them to report any bad behaviour by his pupils and he really did follow it up.

Inevitably exclusions tend to rise at first which raises another question of how best to deal with excluded pupils.

I am slightly more doubtful about a lost age of "respect". I went to school in the 1940s/50s which is often thought of as a time of respect. All I can say is that it wasn't the case at my school. I remember kids spitting on elderly people from the top deck of the bus; a teacher who chased us round the classroom lashing at our legs with a cane; kids drawing rude pictures of a female teacher and pinning them above her head, and teachers being assaulted. I could go on. The past is often idealised. (See the comment posted by Joe on my entry of 6.10.04).

I suspect a lot depends on where you go to school. Drugs were less common then they are now and that must make things easier but knives were around and were carried in my school - usually flick knives.

Parenting remains the main problem. Schemes like Surestart help but there is a limit on how governments can improve parenting. We do need some more radical thinking on this especially how to help parents who are seriously failing and are either unwilling or unable to co-operate.

Responses

Thanks for comments on the future of the blog - I think it has to be Lord of the Blog! Redesign will commence in the near future.

On the question of what I am called the advice is that I am Lord Soley. Hammersmith only has to be registered as the place name. There are not any other Lord Soley's so the place name doesn't have to be referred to. Having said that I hope people will continue to use 'Clive'. Other more colourful descriptions are expected from time to time but beware the libel lawyers!!

Helen Beveridge is a neice but I liked the comment about the Beveridge report!

The comments on terrorism are interesting but it is worth revisiting the UN site to look at the various reports/resolutions on terrorism. ( http://www.un.org ) The working definition recommended by the UN focuses on the deliberate targeting of civilians.

The UN also recognises the need to look at causes but it also recognises that terrorism should not only be confronted and defeated but must also be outside the emerging body of international law. The UN Report and Kofi Annan have both referred to the very real threat of terrorism linked to nuclear or chemical/biological weapons.

I don't doubt that Iraq is an important factor attracting recruits to suicide bombings but it doesn't excuse it. The recent IRA declaration against the future use of force is a timely reminder that terrorism often fails in its objectives. As Seamus Mallon, the SDLP MP once said "The Good Friday agreement is Sunningdale for slow learners"! he was thinking of both Unionist and Republican diehards. (Sunningdale was the proposed agreement from the 1970's that was similar in many respects to the Good Friday agreement.) 

Many of my speeches in the House of Commons in the 1970s/80s referred to the need to deal with the underlying political problems but much as I could understand how someone born and brought up in certain parts of Northern Ireland could join one of the terror groups I knew that most people didn't join and most people had the moral strength to reject the violence even it was difficult and dangerous to do so. You can say the same for Iraq or any of the other trouble spots.

People in all countries know these problems are not easy to solve and they know the difference between deliberate attempts to kill or maim in the causes of terror and attempts, successful or not, to modernise societies within a structure of law and freedom.

Dan, I think Iran is different to Iraq. I agree it isn't light and reason in that country but I do think there is a struggle within between those who seek to modernise within the boundaries of freedom and law and those trying to assert authoritarian rule. That puts the world in the difficult position of trying to create and encourage the conditions for reform. the same is true of other unstable countries - Pakistan and Indonesia spring to mind.

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

School discipline

I note the head teachers working group on school discipline and parental responsibility.

I am too pushed for time to write a longer post right now but I would like to hear any views on what action we could take to deal with excluded pupils and the general problem of discipline in schools.

Saturday, July 16, 2005

Lord of the Blog

While I'm trying to get my act together and restyle this blog I think I would rather stick to 'Clive' for general use. So no need to call me Lord Clive and certainly not Lord Helpus!

Thanks for the kind comments from here and overseas.   

I have a different problem related to this. I ought to drop the MP bit in the URL but I am told this could break many links so the suggestion is that I keep the existing URL. Any ideas?

Turkey

News has come through about the bus bomb in Turkey. It's unclear whether this is a Kurdish terror group or not. Initially the Turks were reported as saying it was a Kurdish group but I'm not sure of the accuracy of this claim.

I'm afraid we are in for a lot more of this - it's catching on.

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

House of Lords

I took my seat in the House of lords today. So I must now redesign this site.

The URL will stay the same but I think I have to become Lord of the Blog!

London bombs

This is not an attempt to respond to all the  comments on this issue. I just want to add some points which pick up on some of the entries.

I am reluctant to ascribe specific motives to people who kill themselves in situations of this type. I am sure that wider political issues are involved and I think it likely that Iraq has added to the anger of some of the people who turn to the extremists but that doesn't mean it is the primary motive.

It seems likely that Al Qaeda or their philosophy is behind this and their attacks started  long before Iraq. Many countries including Kenya, Tanzania and France (11 men in May 2002)  have lost people to Al Qaeda style attacks. Iraq may be a factor but it is not the central one.

My guess is that the G8 summit was too good a propaganda opportunity to be missed. It not only guaranteed extra world media coverage but also deflected the agenda away from Africa and global warming.

You clearly cannot justify actions like this and the Nigerian mother who made such an eloquent and emotional appeal for her lost son spoke for many of us.

There is also an underlying issue here about alienated British Muslim youth. It is not the first time that first or second generation descendants have been alienated form their parents values and also from society. Black Afro Caribbean young men had similar problems and still do but their feelings have not been expressed in such an overtly political way.

The suicidal nature of these attacks will I fear continue and in as many countries as there are active cells.

These are at least in part directed at the overall economic nature of our world hence the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the inclusion of the UN as an "enemy" of Al Qaeda.

There is an issue of modernisation here as well. To fundamentalists (of any religion) city's like London represent a threat to the purity of their idealised views of the world.They can't win but they can cause great misery.

I was so impressed, indeed humbled by the reaction of so many Londoners - it really is a great city with a great heart and I am proud of its multi coloured face. 

I am very pleased that police,politicians, civic leaders and the media have been so clear in separating out terrorism/crime from Islam. I know many people do feel like Ingrid but the terrorists really do win if they are allowed to divide our community so I want to pull communities together and I won't accept any excuses for this type of behaviour - and I don't think we should start a debate about expulsion from the UK.

There were some very interesting exchanges in the comments on intention in politics and I agree strongly that killing has to be judged on intention. In WW2 some 70,000 French civilians were killed by the British and even more Dutch people. Over 4000 French navy personnel were killed when the British sank their fleet in North Africa when they refused to sail their ships to Britain.Yet France and Holland and even Italy are covered with memorials to the British for our part in their liberation.

I am not offering any simple solutions here or hard analogies. I am indicating  how far we have to go to find ways of dealing with dictators, failing states and gross disparities of wealth and power.  Each war, each conflict throws up its own contradictions and forces us to re-examine our ideas and our intentions but central to our aims must be concepts around freedom and the rule of law.

I just hope the next generation of political leaders have more success at solving these problems then mine has had.

Friday, July 08, 2005

London bombs

There is nothing I want to add to all that has been said except that I was pleased everyone I heard was clear about the need to protect the diversity of our society.

I remember the mood after the IRA pub bombs in Birmingham and the subsequent attacks on Irish people. Diversity is not something that fanatics either identify with or understand but they know how to create divisions in society. Don't let them.

One of the first questions I was asked yesterday was 'Do you think they will succeed in taking attention of Africa and global warming?' My answer is that we mustn't allow them to.

Dan. If you send me the information you refer to I will see if I can make some inquiries when I get into the Lords.

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

Press Complaints Commission

Have you read the strange case of the watchdog that hid under the bed?

It is a tale of intrigue, of Government Ministers, of a brave journalist, of East European gangsters, and the newspaper that paid them to forge documents.

You can't afford to miss it - see sidebar papers: The PCC - the watchdog that failed to bark

Olympic Games

I wasn't a great fanatic for getting the games to London but I have to admit to getting caught up in the emotional wave. So here's a big cheer for Seb Coe. Also Ken and Tony (working together - I like that!) and everyone else involved.

Particular thanks should go to Chirac! Never ever make comments about an opponent in the way he did - It has to be counter productive. Besides the food here is really good these days. He is badly out of date. It's probably good in Finland too. (Just thought I ought to add that in case there are any Finns tuned in!)

New City for London

I see Ken Livingstone is thinking of creating a new high density city of 500,000 people in the East London and Thames Gateway area.

See: www.lda.gov.uk/server/show/conwebdoc.1148

It is a long time since I did planning policy for the Party but the pressure on the South East of the UK is not abating. We are talking about 21 million people in that section of Britain from the Wash round Oxford and down to Southampton.

As Ken was telling us to save water by not flushing the loo if we only had a pee he had better find space for a smart new reservoir too!

(He did give you permission to flush it if you found it “distasteful”. Don’t say it!!!)

Responses

Dan. Hydrogen fuelled planes offer long term possibilities but I understand there are unresolved safety and handling issues. There are also uncertainties about the water vapour effect on global warming. Generally the feeling is that biomass fuels might be a better medium term option. See www.sustainableaviation.co.uk

Andrew. I am thinking hard about the future of this blog. It is difficult because right now I’m not an MP and I’m not in the Lords either. So I have no status as a part of the legislature although this will change soon.

I certainly don’t want to become “lofty and above it all” but over the last Parliament or two I have become increasingly less confrontational and more interested in process and the way in which political attitudes change. However, I am still very interested in the wider policy issues.

Occasionally I have to remind myself of the old warning about purpose in politics. “The aim is to change the world not to explain it”. I think I have headed off in that direction in recent times and I have lost some of the old fire in the belly stuff that drives MPs.

Dan. I don’t recall accusing people of supporting terrorism. I do remember saying we should be careful about playing into their propaganda game. Whatever you think of UK/US policy I think most people want democracy. I don’t think the same is true of the opposing groups.

As the evidence supports your view that a napalm type weapon was used then civilians would have been able to take action against British forces if we had used it. Some Iraqi’s are taken legal action against us on other issues. I don’t know whether they could take it against the US. I have no problem in saying the US should not use it.

As for a total ban on chemical and biological weapons I don’t think you will get within spitting distance of that until there is a UN agreement that is enforceable. I would enthusiastically support that.

Finally I re read my Fabian pamphlet the other day (See sidebar) and many of the arguments are the same as we have pursued on this blog.

Paul and Paul. I read a little more about Sir Ian Blair yesterday but I still find it hard to decide whether he was being unduly harsh or vigorously pursuing a policy of eliminating racism in the Met.

On the training course I attended in the 1980’s the instructor had set the task which was to decide who goes overboard. The group did debate it and all three groups with woman in initially chose the woman to go overboard. One group then felt that was unfair and went for the short straw option.

The main reasons given for choosing the woman were that woman were generally weaker then men and that they couldn’t withstand the cold as well as men.

I don’t think that would happen now but the purpose of recalling that experience was to show that the Met was aware of the problem of discrimination then and were trying to tackle it.

They were not as successful as they hoped to be partly because of the recruiting policy and partly because the training was not vigorous enough. Things have changed.

I’m entitled to some prejudices and the Daily Mail is one of them. It is a well produced and technically excellent paper. It’s just that in my view it has turned hypocrisy, manipulation and dishonesty into an art form! That’s my prejudice and I’m sticking to it!

Saturday, July 02, 2005

Sir Ian Blair

Fascinating interview in the Guardian today with Ian Blair the Commissioner of the Metropolitan police. I had missed the Daily Mail attack accusing him of political correctness in confronting racism within the police force.

It reminded me of a training session I witnessed in the early 1980's when the police at Hendon training college had an exercise that required each group of officers (about eight to a group) to imagine they were in a lifeboat that was sinking. Someone had to be thrown overboard.

There was a woman in three of the four groups. One boat opted for the democratic exercise in the form of who draws the short straw! In the other two boats they decided to throw the woman overboard. It was a real eye opener not least because one of the woman when asked after the exercise what she felt about being chosen to go over the side replied "Well its true I don't like the cold and I probably wouldn't have survived".

In fact woman withstand cold better then men but she played right into the scapegoat role. The other woman replied "If I was going over, then one of them was coming with me!" And she had the strength to deliver!

I hope things are better now then they were then but I would love to know the background to the current rumours about Sir Ian. Incidentally the Daily Mail would have thrown the woman over too!

Future Heathrow

A new report, 'A strategy towards sustainable development of UK aviation', has just been released.

If we are to continue to enjoy the benefits of air travel then we have to find ways of making this sustainable.

That is no easy challenge and although this report does not contain all the answers for the long term, it does represent an important step forward in this crucial debate.

See: www.sustainableaviation.co.uk

See also: http://www.futureheathrow.blogspot.com

Also: http://www.futureheathrow.org

Friday, July 01, 2005

Responses

Iain Muir informs me that I didn't open Craft house in Hammersmith after all - this is a relief as I thought dementia had set in!

We do need another permanent memorial to the Craft's. London still has too few memorials to the ethnic minorities given the extraordinary contribution they have made to British history over the centuries.

The Mary Seacole Memorial Statue Appeal is going well with a £10,000 contribution from Barclay's to commission an artist. If you wish to help please visit the web site - see side bar.

As for the future of this blog Iain, I am hoping to relaunch it when I go to the Lords in a couple of weeks time. I would welcome any views as to what form it should take.

I don't want to loose my involvement in international affairs but I am very conscious that the coverage is heavily skewed. I could focus on the work of the Lords in a more general form and that is probably the most constructive way forward. Any views please? Also, should I rename it Lord of the Blog?! Any better suggestions?

I will cover local issues but I have no status other then my general knowledge built up over 26 years as the MP for the area.

Patrick Baroni makes a point about the responsibility of the absent parent in Family dispute situations and the way they can feel frustrated by the system. I don't doubt our system needs further reform but these are remarkably difficult cases to resolve precisely because the parents cannot, for whatever reason, resolve it themselves and one or both will frequently undermine any attempt at a resolution.

Dan. I don't think we can refuse to deal with the current Iranian leader because of his past involvement with hostage taken. (Incidentally I didn't know he had been but I'll take your word for it).

We have dealt with Israeli leaders who were involved with the Stern gang in the past and we have dealt with Unionist/Republican leaders linked to terror in Northern Ireland. Each case has to be judged on its merits.

Maybe I ought to use the relaunched Lords blog to address some of the issues I was involved with in the past, like the negotiations with Sinn fein and Unionist groups in the 1980's. What do people think?