Depicting famous people

The events surrounding the shootings at Charlie Hebdo were horrific. It is incomprehensible to liberal Western traditions that the depiction of someone in a cartoon should lead to the killing of the cartoonist. There was enough furore after the 'Danish cartoon' a couple of years ago - which was re-printed in Charlie Hebdo - but nothing like this.

The sin, if sin it was, was to depict the prophet. 'Islamic tradition' - not Islamic law - forbids the portrayal of the prophet or any of his companions. This ban led to a flourishing of calligraphy and other recognisable features of the Islamic art.

Where would Christianity be without its depiction of its prophets? The Renaissance would simply never have happened and our great art galleries would be empty. You could get burned at the stake for suggesting the sun was at the centre of the solar system and the same would have probably awaited you had you produced a satirical cartoon of a religious figure. Thankfully printing was in its infancy and Private Eye and Charlie Hebdo did not exist.

By the time of the Enlightenment, things were rather more relaxed.

North Korea clearly feels as sensitive as the terrorists if the fuss about The Interview is anything to go by. Having initially reeled from the hacking, Sony strengthened their sinews and issued the film having had the best publicity it could have hoped for. Sony 1, North Korea 0.

The newspapers were clearly feeling emboldened for the following appeared on a BBC website today, a week after the Charlie Hebdo events:

The Big Kim?
A suggestion that North Korea is keen on opening a restaurant in Scotland gives sub-editors plenty of punning opportunities.

"Kim dine with me," says the Daily Star, playing on the name of the reclusive state's "tubby tyrant", Kim Jong-un, as it suggests that dog meat soup and pine-nut gruel would be on the menu. The paper explains that a Pyongyang-backed restaurant is already open in Amsterdam, channelling 30% of its profits back to the state, and that Kim has "warmed" to Scotland because of its independence campaign.

The Daily Mirror dresses up the "supreme leader" in a tartan hat and ginger wig, renaming him "Kim Jock-un". Its effort at a "McJong's" menu includes Kim sum, Pyong lamb and spotted dictator. It says the North Korean leader has "fallen in love with all things Scottish, particularly whisky".

"See you Kimmy," is the headline in the Sun, which also pictures Kim in a bonnet, declaring: "I'm the Supreme Eater." That paper's idea of North Korean fine dining includes barbecued mollusc and cold noodles, washed down with an aphrodisiac made from bear's bile.

This is indeed fighting talk. It is clear that the three papers are keen to be seen not being cowed.

A tourism leaflet for a park in Budapest shows how we can prick pomposity. No one is currently holding up Socialist Russia as a paragon of virtue or feels strongly enough to respond and the leaflet is therefore free to mock the statues with no risk of causing offence. Offence turns to farce. Refreshing and revolutionary stuff.

World War 1 again

The commemoration of World War I became temporarily marred when Michael Gove suggested that there was too much criticism of the leaders of the time.

This encouraged us to go back and look at that excellent book written by military historian and advocate of the tank, Liddell Hart. His History of the First World War (it had a different title at the time) was written in 1930.

In it, he lists endless examples of people who were sacked for being right, only to be replaced by people who seem to have done exactly what their predecessors proposed. Granted, he claims the French were better at this than the British but there were plenty of British examples too, not least the early advocates of the tank.

His epilogue is objective and generous to all participants. It includes this wonderful passage which seems to be just the sort of thing to get up Mr Gove's nose.

In this mood of reflection we are more ready to recognise both the achievements and the point of view of our late enemies, and perhaps all the more because we realise that both the causes and the course of war are determined by the folly and frailty rather than the deliberate evil of human nature.

The war has become history, and can be viewed in the perspective of history. For good it has deepened our sense of fellowship and community of interest, whether inside the nation or between nations. But, for good or bad, it has shattered our faith in idols, our hero-worshipping belief that great men are different clay from common men. Leaders are still necessary, perhaps more necessary, but our awakened realisation of the common humanity is a safe guard against either expecting from them or trusting in them too much.

Have we really learned that great men are not different clay from common men? Have we really learned not to expect too much of them, or not to trust them too much? I am sure it felt that way when he was writing in 1930.

And what of the idea that the causes and course of war are determined by folly and frailty rather than the deliberate evil of human nature? Would he have agreed with this when he wrote his other great book: the History of the Second World War?    

How may I deport you?

An article on the BBC website set us thinking today, especially as it came at the same time as the 'resolution' of a row between Theresa May and Michael Gove which seemed to centre who who was being tougher on immigrants.

Over breakfast, we looked at our family which is depressingly 'English' bar the usual mix of Irish and Scottish. Our surname is Normanised Welsh in origin so that hints at the male line (if our grandmothers are be believed). One member of the family is qualified to play for Scotland but has no vote in the referendum while another, very English one, happens to be domiciled in Edinburgh and does.

Then there is the Peruvian great grandmother and the two lovely half Polish children-in-law - both Cambridge graduates and not to be entirely trusted with domestic plumbing - whose parents were fleeing racial hatred, another unpleasant regime and tyranny not very long ago.

Tom Shakespeare has a good point about a natural division of England into smaller parts, something John Prescott tried but for which he found no traction amongst the populace. Where JP went wrong was neither choosing the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms nor their modern equivalent: television areas. The moment you include Leicestershire (Mercia) in East Anglia or Gloucestershire (The Marches?) in the South West, the odour of compromise bubbles to the surface.

Like many families, our ancestors left the land in the mid 19th century and became educated entrepreneurs. and so perhaps we should be railing against any immigration by others, but we are not. As Tom Shakespeare - ah, name to conjure with - so eloquently puts it, we are first and foremost human beings. Although that idea probably puts us down as 'untrustworthy Guardian-reading, wishy-washy, left-wing, intellectual liberals' in some quarters.

All this inspired the following which is dedicated to Theresa May and her friends MG and the farrago who is driving the intolerance:

How may I deport thee? Let me count the ways:
Your mother's folks were Vikings and your father's, they were Danes.

They say your aunt Matilda married ancient Norman stock 
By a Saxon out of Wessex for a piece of Brighton Rock.

When Scot crossed into England they made an awful mess
The colour of your uncle's hair, came from a Pict we guess. 

And now that Aunty Barbara is courting Samjit Din
I'm sure that they'll deport her, or refuse to let him in.

Our queen is really German. Her husband is a Greek.
Some Angevins who ruled us were really rather weak.

We're Celtic tribes we're Beaker Folk, we're Roman, Saxon, Dane
We're Frenchmen, Dutch, Italian, and Spaniards from the Main.

We've come from places far away, across the seven seas
From India and Pakistan, we're Malay, Thai, Balinese. 

We all arrived and stirred it up and somehow made it fit.
The splendid outcome of this mix is what we call True Brit.

With apologies to so many poets ... Kipling or Chesterton would have said it so much better.

The Life of Brian

Are we the only people who have spotted the irony of the Head of Religion and Ethics at the BBC saying that the nation has become so irreligious that we would not understand the jokes in Monty Python's Life of Brian? It’s no laughing matter: Britain has become a nation of religious illiterates 'who are baffled by Biblical references in Monty Python film The Life of Brian'

There was a great fuss when the film came out which culminated in one of the great television debates of the age when Cleese and Palin met Muggeridge and Stockwood. Muggeridge and Stockwood vs Cleese and Palin

The idea that we should learn about religion to understand the jokes in a film which was condemned by leading churchmen when it came out, rather than for any moral improvement has a special educational charm.

And if we have to learn about religion to understand the jokes then what about Romans go Home? Come on you Latin teachers, join the fight.  Only someone with a grounding in Latin - preferably from Kennedy's First Eating (sic) Primer, but from the Cambridge Latin Course if you are younger - would begin to understand the scene. Surely this is a reason to learn Latin as well as RE 'so that we can understand the jokes in the film.'

How times change; or Tempora mutantur as Latinists might say. Definitely one for the Vicar of Bray.

Heaven help them

It is difficult to know how one should feel when reading a press release which says that, in deciding not to fund seven non-national museums, the DCMS is 'confident that despite the current economic climate alternative bodies will be keen to take on the sponsorship (aka funding) of these museums.'

Should one feel sorrow for the naivety of the person at the DCMS who thought that another body would step forward and provide the money to support these museums, each of which costs over £1m to stay open? Or should one feel sorry for the poor civil servant who had to write this nonsensical stuff to satisfy a minister's uninformed conviction?

As it happens, over two years later, the DCMS has managed to pass on three of the seven: two to the Science Museum Group and one - the Tyne and Weir Museums and Archives - to the Arts Council England who has not previously been responsible  for managing any such venue. Both host organisations are funded by, yes you guessed it, the DCMS. One only wonders what sweeteners were offered.

The remaining four, including the Geffrye, Horniman and Design Museum in London, and the People's History Museum in Manchester (hardly a name likely to please a backwoods Tory) remain in DCMS hands. The DCMS now announce that they 'have decided not to pursue alternative sponsorship for the Horniman and the Geffrye'.

So that was a sound (bite) policy wasn't it.

If they want to save money on running these museums they could think of introducing an admission charge. Oh, sorry, I forgot. These museums and galleries are full of 'art' and that could never happen.

News from elsewhere:

• Westminster plans to scrap its £350,000 arts programme
• Sheffield Council has confirmed it will cut £200,000 from Museums Sheffield from April
• Blackburn with Darwen Council ... as part of overall savings of £30m ... is reviewing opening hours at Blackburn Museum
• Cornwall Council wants to reduce the annual £384,000 subsidy to Mount Edgecumbe estate  by £66,000 for the next three years. A councillor says 'the estate will struggle to survive'  
• Newcastle City Council has announced plans to scrap £1.2 million in subsidies to theatres and other arts venues. Is there any connection here with the transfer of the Tyne and Weir Museums and Archives to the Arts Council?
• Tracey Emin threatens 'riots' at cuts in the arts. Now we should be really worried 

The dominoes are beginning to fall. It will only be a matter of time ...

So that's clear then

We are becoming very familiar with intermediary organisations - or 'bridge' organisations are they are now known. These are the sorts of bodies which get between you and a main funder and syphon off money which could go to the frontline in the interests of 'coordinating' and 'bringing together'. In reality, they are stepping into the gaps left by the bonfire of the quangos who have had to reduce staff and reach, and in so doing have retired into their ivory towers. See our earlier post

We were offered the following summary paragraphs about one bridge organisation today:

• In places of least engagement, it will strengthen networks and working relationships to develop innovative solutions to the variety of challenges that these areas face
• It will be looking to support and build strong connections and relationships across the region to ensure they provide the best possible offer to ... in our region

I am glad we have cleared that up. Looking to seems particularly carefully chosen in the second. Is anyone any the wiser as to what do they actually do ...?

Greater fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em ...

Um ...

Three new entries for our Vicar of Bray category ...

The BBC reports that 'South Africa's justice minister has demanded an explanation after 270 miners were charged with the murder of their colleagues who were shot by police.

'State prosecutors charged the miners under the apartheid-era "common purpose" doctrine.'

As you are not dead, like your friends, we will put in you in prison anyway. And ...

The news that Transport Secretary Justine Greening might have to be reshuffled out of her job for opposing a ban on a third runway at Heathrow as (strategist) George Osborne thinks it is time for a(nother) government U-turn. The fact that opposition to a third runway was in both parties' manifestos, in the coalition agreement and is current government policy is presumably no bar to a U-turn.

 That was, of course, then and this, of course, is now. But you deserve a bonus item: the announcement about the English GCSE results. How come the all-important C/D grade boundary appeared to have moved between January and June?
 
It was Gove meddling said teachers ... A pause while OfQual looked at the results, no doubt scrabbling around for some way to absolve the Minister. Ah yes, let's retrofit. The Chief Executive then stood up to announce that it was not the June exams that were wrong but the January exams which were 'generous'. Problem solved: no re-marking necessary and the January students feeling relieved.

Hollow laughter from teachers; Sir Humphrey proud of his own.

Carbon footprinting

HLF has become the first major funder to require carbon footprinting in all large projects funding applications. HLF will work ... to provide applicants with a carbon footprinting tool, already piloted at the British Museum. ... [applicants] will be required to calculate the carbon footprint of the utilities consumption and visitor travel associated with their projects and encouraged to pursue reductions.

We wonder how the British Museum has been encouraging their visitors - the vast majority of whom come from overseas and will have flown to the UK - to reduce the carbon footprint of their travel. Perhaps with well-meaning messages such as: please walk or use a bicycle (!?) or use public transport such as buses and the underground.

Museums and attractions who do not have ample public transport going past their doors will presumably be asked to close their car parks as part of their encouragement measures. Or perhaps they expect us to offer reduced price admission to those that travel by bus, thus reducing our income and making us pay for their policies. Thanks a bundle, folks.

What this well-meaning policy reminds us is that an attraction has absolutely no control over how the visitor travels: they just turn up on one's doorstep and jolly grateful we are that they do. There are enough barriers to visiting without preaching to them about climate change and making it hard for them to get here without upsetting an eco-warrior.

And how does this fit with the argument that part of the reason for the British Museum receiving government funding is that they attract a large number of overseas visitors.


Oh polly-political correctness,
Half dead and half alive.
... as the poet did not say.

Satisfactory?

We were amused to read a ten year old's school report from 1932. 'He has had a very satisfactory year' said his headmaster. Position in class: first in all but one subject.

We wonder how this definition of 'satisfactory' fits with Ofsted's which re-defines it as 'needs improvement'?

So much for Gove's attempt to 'go back to traditional teaching'. 1932 seems quite traditional (a.k.a. 'old fashioned').

Data or information?

An issue which quangos are going to be faced quite soon is the mismatch between their appetites and their tummies' ability to absorb food.

On the one hand they are suffering a massive reduction in staffing while on the other, they are asking for ever more detailed information on the use that has been made of their money, no doubt to ensure probity, effectiveness and such stuff.

Administration in the public sector generally is driven by three motors:

• The need to ensure that all stable doors that have been found wanting in the past can never be re-opened
• The need to ensure value for money - the old economy, efficiency and effectiveness, and
• The belief that 'good management' is an absolute: mostly consisting of the two above underpinned by lots of data

The fewer staff they have the less time those staff will have to look at the increasing volumes of reporting data for which they are asking. This desire for data will long overshoot the ability of quangos' systems to cope.

I have an irresistible image of an Edward Lear-like quango looking something like the Quangle-Wangle and behaving like the cartoon character Wil E Coyote, lumbering off the edge of the cliff, with its legs thrashing around in mid air before descending to the canyon beneath, weighed down by the load of indigestible data that it has requested. If only they realised what they are doing to themselves.

How many times have we said to a quango or funding body something like: 'We can provide data on what each volunteer did in each hour on each day of the project if you really want it, but what are you going to do with it?' 'Never mind,' they reply, 'just provide it. It is best practice.'

So they also judge us on our ability to produce detailed figures which is an easy proxy for good management and for real information. Oh for some intelligent risk-taking and management and rather less administrative correctness; for someone who knows the difference between more data and useful information.

Does size matter?

Fashions change in confusing ways. We have a government that is preaching Localism and the Big Society: the devolution of choice (and responsibility?) to the lowest levels and the involvement of all in those choices. On the other hand, much of the decision-making is being increasingly centralised. So what is the best solution?

The present thesis is that the country will lift itself out of recession when bright, sparky entrepreneurs create dynamic new companies and organisations. Small companies display a lightness of touch, creative passion and an ability to grow and adapt quickly. Big companies, in this narrative, can be slow and cumbersome, as difficult to turn around as an ocean liner.

The stock market does not always agree with this analysis. When a large company swallows up a smaller rival the share price goes up: efficiencies will be made behind the scenes, more will be obtained out of existing customer lists, the smaller company will benefit from the wider experience and access of the larger.

On the other hand, when the asset stripper comes along and separates out a large company, then this will provide focus, allow people to concentrate more on their core business, cut out wasteful communication costs. The share price goes up.

The public sector is going through a similar exercise at the moment. Quangos were created as arms-length units which could focus on specific issues and which could do things at arm's length from ministers - thus protecting fragile posteriors from the need for real understanding and from flak over unpopular decisions. Perish the thought that quangos were also a way of getting around civil service head count.

Small, light-footed quangos are no longer flavour of the times: no, we must get rid of as many as possible. The result has been a series of super-quangos. Their share prices, if they had one, would immediately go up, never mind that they are now likely to be further from their real customers and less sensitive to their needs.

We can make savings from putting quangos together, say ministers. We need to cut their expenditure budgets and demand administrative savings.

Doing these two things at once was a cute political move. Cutting the budgets of existing quangos by say 10% would have produced howls of protest from the special interest groups concerned but tell a quango that it is to be abolished and combined with another and magically the special interest group is left isolated, concentrating so hard on ensuring that the 'work should continue' that they completely miss the fact that the budget is being cut by 50% in the process.

What is the consequence of this change? The new quango is intended to be smaller - leaner in public sector jargon - than the previous two or three. With a net reduction in head count, the quango staff are even further from the action than before. They are less able to give time to a proper consideration of what is going on: there is simply too much of it.

Because budgets have been cut there is less money to spend anyway and therefore there are likely to be more disgruntled clients but never mind, they are out in the sticks and their individual loss will not rock the ship of state.

So how do they react to the new world in which they are separated further from their clients or interest groups, in which they have fewer informed staff and less money to share? There are two obvious strategies: find an organisation at 'the next layer down' or re-introduce the famous challenge fund.

The challenge fund
Organisations need to be more focused (on our agenda - unspoken). We cannot go on giving money across the board. We need to stimulate targeted change. Let's create a challenge fund.

This suits the centralists of course and produces a centripetal force with descions spiralling inwards to the centre, quite the opposite of Localism. Centralists can choose the projects and announce them - nothing like an announcement for getting publicity for the giver - while the recipient's agenda is tortured off track by the need to respond to the often weird requirements of the new scheme. We want to you make a real and sustainable change in the number of people of Lithuanian origin that you attract to your museum/visitor attraction/sports fields. Given that this is the only money available, we, the clients, simply say yes to the absurd request and hope that everyone will have forgotten the original purpose by the time the scheme is over, hoping that we can cream off enough money from the the targeted grant to pay the electricity bill for that is what is really needed.

The next layer down
We need someone to do the work we used to do but can no longer do because of a shortage of staff: enter the 'bridge organisation' as the code for Localism. This is typically a small charitable body with an enthusiasm for some part of the quango's work. Its pitch to the quango is along the lines of 'You provide us with funds and we can deliver your BlahBlah agenda'. The poor overworked, under-resourced quango is all too grateful for such things and signs a cheque. The bridge organisation rushes around the quango's former clients, looking for people who will do their bidding. So they create a new mini-quango. The clients have their agendas disrupted and are even further from the funding body while the bridge organisation takes the credit for the excellent BlahBlah work.

There used to be such things: they were called 'regional offices' but many of these were abolished in the last round of slimming down quangos.

How much better if the money did not have to cross a bridge.
Another solution is to preach partnership to a group of disparate bodies: if you all worked in partnership to a single agenda then ... The unspoken agenda completes the sentence we would have fewer people to deal with therefore might just about be able to cope.

No one asks whether partnership is a good thing. It is the thinking of the acquisitive company which hoovers up small entrepreneurial businesses to create a conglomerate. set your clock for the moment when someone suggests breaking up theses behemoths in order to give greater focus, allow people to concentrate more on their core business, cut out wasteful communication costs, allow greater freedom of local decision-making.

As Augustus De Morgan - I always thought it was Hilaire Belloc - said:

'Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on,
While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.

Contemporary artists revolutionise museums?

To return to another theme: the way that 'contemporary artists' are transforming museums (not!). Be warned: there is more to come on this subject in later posts.

Contemporary artists are helping museums unlock the potential of their collections and reach new audiences read the headline of an article in the Museums Journal by the usually reliable Simon Stephens. He managed to knit together a disparate set of projects to support the case including: 

• Nottingham where 1000 young artists are working in the New Art Exchange and Nottingham Contemporary Galleries taking part in Young Artists. Might there be a hint here about the word gallery and artists? The title of the project is hardly inspiring but it probably does what it says
• 10 artists matched with 10 museums and galleries for a range of after hours events in museums. We have mentioned this before. Ten of them; hardly a widespread welcome by the museums 
• The Haywood gallery will become a 'school run by artists'. Not surprising in a gallery
• Grayson Perry at the British Museum. This was obviously a terrific success but people with large budgets and lots of spare space like the BM can indulge such projects
• The Museum of London worked with artists to produce four artworks, opening out the debate ... a bonus point for additional jargon  about 'opening a debate'
• Snibston colliery site
• National Trust Trust New Art which was run at five properties
• Alchemy at Manchester Museum
• Welcome Museum
• New Expressions which we mentioned in an earlier posting 

This does not sound as though projects are nearly as widespread as the headline suggests. One would expect galleries to work with artists and large sites like Snibston and the National Trust have spaces ready made for art of one form or another. Most museums are probably quietly jealous of them as good quality narrative art can help to bring spaces alive and give an edge to large spaces. What none of these suggest is that artists were engaged in helping tell the original stories of the objects.

Simon goes on to speak of the 'ability of artists to look at collections in fresh and innovative ways which appeals to curators.'

This sounds like a big love-in which has little core motivation. There is an overtone of misunderstanding, alienation, jealousy of knowledge between artists and historians: a theme that was explored so well in John Fowles' short story Poor Koko in his Ebony Tower collection. A burglar ties up a man in a lonely cottage and then burns his books in front of him because he cannot stand the thought of others having knowledge which is inaccessible to him.

A diary piece in the same issue of MJ took the Mick out of the same thought. Asked what  museums were for, a hapless and fictional museum director replied 'to serve the public' and was told 'No, they are there for artistic excellence'. They were then taken off for re-education.I used to study history. Now I explore art.

Winning friends and influencing people II

The recent Local Council elections sent the Coalition into a spin as it tried to decide what to do now that the country did not like it. 'Turn right' said the backwoodsmen; 'turn left' said the inner cities; 'just do something without making a mess of it for once', said others.

The draft Queen's speech which is apparently handwritten on vellum and takes three days to dry - it is so hard to find a monk to make the changes in a hurry nowadays; no wonder HVIII dissolved their monasteries - was to be revised.  The PM and his Deputy headed off to a tractor factory in Essex to show that they were in touch with people.

The choice of Essex was obviously a careful one. It was not too far from London and south of the bad lands which start somewhere around Watford. As one commentator remarked, 'it was a triumph to find a British factory still making something; and within reach of London too.'  The tractors were blue and yellow - the source of a very laboured and badly delivered 'joke' by the DPM which fell on dead ears. The speech was not aimed at the bemused tractor drivers but at the media. It all smacked of something from the television series 2012: the result of some over-enthusiastic young spinner/policy wonk in No 10 who should not have been allowed out.

Political sketchwriter Simon Carr was his usual pithy self. 'It did not matter what they said, no one was listening', he said. 'They came to Essex not only to show they got it but to show they really, really got it, with a cherry on top. They talked of things of which they were hugely proud such as life chances, and focus, and delivery, and monetary policy, and governing for the whole country. Everything we [journalists] had heard before we did not want to hear again.

'Asked about the price of fuel one of them said, "The world diversifying its fuels supplies will have a good effect for people using tractors". Surprisingly this reply does not seem to have got a round of applause.

'Ed M had said, no one has any respect for politicians any more. This may be true but judging from Basildon I'd be surprise if anyone is listening.'

So that is being in touch with people. It gives you such confidence.

Winning friends and influencing people I

Managing people to do things and knowing that they have delivered 'satisfactorily' - a term to which we will return - and that you have obtained value for money is not as straightforward as some believe. It is easy to convince yourself that 'they', the often invisible 'others', are indolent, inadequate, unimaginative slackers who are not engaging brain, working too slowly or sub-optimally; or are showing signs of sloping off at every opportunity. The truth is rarely simple. Here are examples from education where Ministers struggle to extract 'value' from their vast expenditure.

'Teachers delivered a stinging attack on the new Chief Inspector of Schools ... accusing him of introducing a 'climate of fear' in schools', said a headline. One of us is a teacher who has been through many Ofsteds, another has had the dubious privilege of reading a detailed Ofsted report and came out spluttering not only at the poor quality of the piece of work but at the appalling way in which it drew conclusions on the most circumstantial evidence or from single examples.

Education is not a happy industry at the moment - mind you, nor are health or care professionals, the police ... in fact all except city bankers and politicians I guess. However, some of the noises coming out of Ofsted turn the clock back to the early 80s when those invisible others were slackers, scabs and surrogate anarchists (analogous to vegetarians as the Telegraph once remarked).

'Satisfactory' is no longer adequate and should be replaced in Ofsted reports with 'requires improvement'. Hang on; is this satisfactory derived from the word satisfacere in Latin meaning 'meet the expectations, needs or desires'. Surely, if a school is satisfactory it therefore meets the needs of the test or inspection. Back to your Latin lessons Ofsted. Stop trying to re-write meanings in the English language. Perhaps a maths lesson on averages would be useful as a way of reminding you that we cannot all be above average. It is politically desirable to sound macho, thrusting and driving for improved performance but it does make you look awfully silly.

The process of Ofsted is so flawed. A short sharp inspection is to meant to stand in for a real assessment in the same way that exam results are somehow meant to smooth out assessment of genuine value-added, ignoring the obvious realities that children grow up in fits and spurts and that life throws problems at different times in different ways which disrupt the smooth path to nirvana imagined by policy makers.

In a letter to a newspaper, a primary school head teacher said 'I have been through four Ofsted inspections in my time at various schools and now live in dread of the unexpected car in the car park in the morning which might indicate that they have arrived for a snap inspection'. It sounds like a dawn visit from the Stazi or KGB. She went on to describe the inspectors as failed teachers, one too old and another who only had experience of teaching languages in a secondary school. 'I am watching good people leave this profession because of the way we have been treated'. she concluded.

'What a contrast', said another letter, 'to the inspections we used to have from HMIs who took each teacher aside for a quiet and confidential chat about ways in which they might change their approach, or new strategies for teaching. Each conversation was facilitative and useful, not judgemental.'
Another suggestion was that any Ofsted Inspector judging a school as below par should have to spend the next six months in the school, helping to put things right. I am not sure I would like to be the head teacher of that school with a disgruntled inspector under my feet but I bet that inspector would have a different view of reality at the end of that time.

You meddle with education at your peril as many Ministers of Education would attest, only one of them having ever had a meaningful career after passing through that department. Michael Gove is discovering this the hard way.

'Head teachers vote to reject Gove's new test for primary school pupils', said a headline. A teachers' union spokesman said, 'They have created a new monster to replace SATs. The tests will cost millions to introduce which would be better spent on professional development of teachers in accurate and reliable assessment. The screening test is inferior to what schools do already but if it is to happen it should be used as a diagnostic test and not a stick with which to beat schools'.

To this a DES spokeswoman replied that 'too little attention has been paid to spelling and handwriting over the past decade'. And what was her evidence? I bet it is was something a minister heard at a cocktail party: something which reinforced the view that those invisible others never do what you want them to in the way that you want them to.

The National Curriculum

We feel like starting a new theme called The Vicar of Bray to cover examples of saying the right thing to suit political correctness; or the right thing at the wrong time; or to note the way policies ebb and flow with the tide (keep up can't you?).

This might include observations such as that of Vince Cable who, in December 2010, mentioned to an undercover journalist he had 'declared war on Rupert Murdoch over the media magnate's plans to take over all of BSkyB'. Cable was stripped of responsibility for decisions on the contract which were passed to Jeremy Hunt at DCMS. A few weeks later the Metropolitan Police started investigating allegations of hacking in the Murdoch empire. This spawned the Leveson Enquiry. There were more arrests this week. So Vince is our first non-Vicar for saying the Right thing at the Wrong time (and to the wrong people as it happens).

Another example, from Education, paraphrased from a letter in the newspapers from someone living in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Schools agreeing to take on Academy status will be offered exemption from the National Curriculum. This curriculum, introduced in 1987 to 'standardise and optimise' teaching and learning has been rigorously enforced by Ofsted. It has led to a rise in teachers' workload and a decline in their morale as they have 'taught to the exams'. The end result has been 'improvements' gained by lowering examination standards. Meanwhile ministers have been bemoaning the decline in literacy and general social and educational competence.

Now it seems that this 'essential element' of the maintenance of educational standards is not so essential after all. It is a malign imposition on schools which can be lifted if they play ball with the latest whims of a government minister.

This is similar to the new proposal for under-performing schools. In the past they would be taken into the care of the local authority's education department and put under special measures. Now, exactly the reverse happens: they are specifically excluded from management by the local authority and are being turned into academies which will mean that they will not have to follow the National Curriculum which was designed to ... yes, you guessed it. Oh of course: that was then and this is now.

Moral: never tell a minister something they do not want to hear, especially if it contains facts.