It is not George W. Bush’s fault that he looks like a chimpanzee. (See www.bushorchimp.com for a summary of the evidence.) But the most expensive education his father could buy still left him struggling to put a meaningful sentence together.
This is the man who told voters that “more and more of our imports come from overseas”. Who explained the American military’s role as follows: “to fight and be able to win the war, and therefore prevent war from happening in the first place”.
As Mark Crispin Miller, author of the wonderful The Bush Dyxlexicon, says: “He tends to blurt out all or part of what he’s really thinking, even as he’s trying to lie about it … In fact, George W. Bush tends to turn completely incoherent when he speaks without a script.”
Now Bush has flown home, and Westminster is enjoying a brief respite before the Queen’s Speech. It is a time for reflection. So how about this as a critique of American foreign policy?
“I want to challenge the Bush Administration’s implicit assumption that we have to give up many of our traditional freedoms in order to be safe from terrorists. Because it is simply not true … it makes no more sense to launch an assault on our civil liberties as the best way to get at terrorists than it did to launch an invasion of Iraq as the best way to get at Osama Bin Laden. In both cases, the Administration has attacked the wrong target.”
It comes from a speech given this month by Al Gore who, but for a few hanging chads and Republican-appointed judges, would be President himself today. And it forms a useful reminder that not all Americans support Bush – or what they can understand of him.
Gore appeals to patriotism and plunders America’s history to make his case. Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Abraham Lincoln all get a mention. On this side of the Atlantic, the left sees history as embarrassing and irredeemably Tory.
But in America there is still resonance when Gore says: “The Bush Administration’s treatment of American citizens it calls ‘enemy combatants’ is nothing short of un-American.”
Or as Dubya himself once put it: “It’s not the way America is all about.”
Outside, Dubya’s goons were riding shotgun on the buses. Inside it was 1975 all over again. MPs wore Kevin Keegan perms and nylon tanktops; somewhere in the background, Bay City Rollers singles played.
All because David Taylor was introducing a bill making it easier to do away with the remaining grammar schools. In 1975 comprehensives were a great radical cause. To some they still are – particularly amongst those who went to public or grammar schools.
Taylor is too amiable a soul to do class-war invective well. He had sweated over some choice phrases (‘Dodos in the educational aviary’), but the burden of his case was that selection depresses overall standards and comprehensives raise them.
This has been part of the progressive gospel for a couple of generations. Unfortunately, it may not be true. In 1970, 59 per cent of students at Oxford came from state or direct grant schools. By 1994 that figure had dropped to 33 per cent.
Other opponents of selection base their arguments on the iniquities of the 11 plus – tales of short-trousered Angst from before most of them were born. No one wants to go back to that, even if a system which tested children only once and at so late an age now looks rather humane.
But it is hard to be enthusiastic about the system 1975 bequeathed to us. ‘Diversity’ is a buzzword, and many schools do their best to provide it. But with a comprehensive intake this almost inevitably means large establishments in which not all children will thrive. The loss of motivation many experience between 11 and 14 is the biggest problem in education today.
Meanwhile – more in America than Britain, so far – commentators are looking at the stereotypical subject choices of older pupils (boys don’t study languages, girls don’t study science) and wondering if single-sex schools have something to offer.
Deep down, it depends on your philosophy of life. To optimists, reform is easy. Assemble a roomful of educational experts with beards and knitted ties (and that’s only the women) and improvements will naturally emerge.
To a pessimist, good schools are rare and precious things, not to be meddled with lightly. As the Duke of Wellington once put it: “Reform, sir? Reform? Aren’t things bad enough as it is?”
I used to think you had to be a wacky libertarian to oppose fluoridation of the water supply. Monday’s debate on the Water Bill changed my mind. Wider please.
Urgh.
People think the benefits are immense. But in October 2000 York University’s Centre for Reviews and Dissemination studied the question. As it said in a recent press release: “We were unable to discover any reliable good-quality evidence in the fluoridation literature world-wide.”
Drill, please. “What evidence we found suggested that water fluoridation was likely to have a beneficial effect, but that the range could be anywhere from a substantial benefit to a slight disbenefit to children’s teeth.”
Mwmph.
Research into the best-known side-effect – flourosis (mottled teeth) – was poor. On other possible problems, “we felt that not enough was known because the quality of the evidence was poor”. Wider.
Have things moved on? “Since the report was published … there has been no other scientifically defensible review that would alter the findings.”
Extra-sharp probe. Norman Baker gave Monday’s best summation. “Does fluoride give health benefits? I conclude that it does but that the benefits are limited. Are there health risks from fluoride? Probably not, but there might be risks, so we need to do further work on that. That equation is not sufficient to justify overriding civil liberties.”
Is it safe?
Mwaaargh!
Just my little joke.
Some MPs said fluoride occurs naturally. So do lead and arsenic, and you wouldn’t want those added to your supply.
Heavy-duty gumhook. Andy Burnham tried to make it a class issue.“We know that it is the most effective way of improving the dental health and quality of life of children in our poorest communities. We should all take that opportunity as members of the Labour party.”
No place for education or personal responsibility, but then Burnham once argued people should be made to carry identity cards so they felt secure. Never accuse him of taking too optimistic a view of the capabilities of his fellow citizens.
Fluoridation is medication for the proles. It discards informed consent and exposes everyone to an unlimited dose. And the government is giving the decision to strategic health authorities, not elected councillors. Scandalous, isn’t it?
Gwrmngh.
That’s the best thing about this job: the fascinating conversations you have.