I am sorry to have to take issue with David Aaronovitch for a second time. (Revisit Post 11)

In The Times of 29 May 2009 he writes “The Human Rights Act has actually brought an important rebalancing in favour of the citizen as against the State.”

In my last Post I encouraged you to read life backwards, like these Posts, drawing on past experiences. I hope that you do so, to understand it better.

Some however – and David Aaronovitch appears to be one of them – hold set ideas in their lives – almost idées fixes – reached before they could realise the complexity of things and witness for themselves the vagaries of human behaviour.

They are also strapped into the straitjacket of the words that they use without really thinking about them. (Revisit Posts 3,4 and 5.)Thereafter they spend the rest of their lives looking for evidence to support those ideas. In email parlance, they “delete without reading” anything that contradicts them or calls them into question.

Politicians and academics, as you will see, are particularly prone to this. (Revisit Post 1)

Back to David Aaronovitch in the Times. Is he right about the beneficial effects of the Human Rights Act?

Never mind that today everyone seems to be saying on the issue of MPs’ expenses that their powers need to be rebalanced with the Executive. If our MPs individually are pretty powerless these days, and they are, what chance is there for you and me?

And what about the “Power Report” that I referred to in Death of a Nightingale and in my last two Posts? (Revisit Posts 24 and 25 ) Were its authors wrong to call for a rebalancing of the rights of the citizen against the State?

In my last Post I wrote about the “Iron fist disguised in the velvet glove”, and I set out why we are all so vulnerable. Here I am talking about the grubby little hand of the censor and those who aid and abet him.

The Death of a Nightingale suggests that we are all “casualties of a system that has somehow lost its way” and it gives a fictional illustration of what I am writing about. Now I am going to give you two real life ones. The Human Rights Act did not help at all.

Before I do so, just a brief reminder from Death of a Nightingale in case you have still to read it.

Act One Scene 6

Margaret Williamson, the Head teacher and Joan Errington the English teacher are discussing why giving legal backing to “rights” has not always helped children with special education needs.

JOAN ERRINGTON Some people think that rights grow on trees. Just pass a law and you’ve planted another tree.

MARGARET WILLIAMSON Weeping willows, more like.

JOAN ERRINGTON Trees or people?

MARGARET WILLIAMSON Politicians are all for human rights, but when it comes to delivering them, ah that’s another matter. There are too many social engineers in politics. They think that all you have to do to change society is to pass another law. You know, human rights sometimes are just dreams, very beautiful dreams, but dreams..

JOAN ERRINGTON Yes, if only it was easy to turns those dreams into reality.

MARGARET WILLIAMSON And when you wake up from your dream, what do you find? Your social engineer has put square pegs into round holes with epoxy glue.

JOAN ERRINGTON That is the nub of it. Some people just don’t realise that one person’s right can become another person’s restriction.

On the first page of my website I say that I write as a participant and as an observer. Here I write as a participant.

I do not describe here the successful campaign by parents to save their school. As I have said, for me that is ancient history. I will tell you however about one little happening.

In this campaign we were inevitably not popular with the Local Authority.

As Chair of Governors at the time, I invited a couple of Lib Dem Councillors to my home to give them a general briefing. They had no great power locally so it was no more than that. I then sent them an email thanking them for coming and hoping that we might meet again.That is all that it said. The next morning, I looked at my computer screen, and to my amazement, I read the following:“Failed mail: Banned or potentially offensive material.”.

I wrote to the Leader of the Council about this. He sent back his apology saying that it had been a computer “glitch.” I accepted his apology at the time. Whether the Lib Dem Councillors should have done so is another matter.

Much more recently, in relation to Death of a Nightingale, both in the Prologue and the Notes & Quotes, I applauded the “Power Report”. (Revisit Posts 24 and 25). I thought it might be helpful if its Chair, Lady Helena Kennedy QC, lent her name in support. I had a friend from University days, a leading Labour lawyer, and I thought he might open a door to her for me. I sent him an email on his academic email address inviting him to do so.

It never reached him. It was subjected to RBL. Never heard of RBL? It is a registered black list operated by a multinational company called Trend Micro. I am going to copy some of the correspondence here, and leave you to think about it. I set out the key parts in red.

Extracts from Emails and letters with Virgin Media and Trend Micro.

10 June 2007
Chief Executive
Virgin Media,

Dear Sir

Re “Black listing” of my IP – Your references 477594 and 407588

I enclose a letter that I am sending to the Chief Executive of Trend Micro but as you are my Internet Service Provider I must necessarily say to you what I say to him.

I look for a clear and unqualified assurance that I am not on any “black list” and, if you think that I should be in the future, you will give me an opportunity to question it. I look for a response not later than 12 noon on Friday 15 June.

Yours sincerely,
Alan Share

Enc.
___________________________________________________________________

10 June 2007

Chief Executive
Trend Micro (UK) Ltd
Pacific House
Third Avenue
Globe Business Park
Marlow SL7 1YL

Dear Sir

Re. Death of a Nightingale and “Black listing” of my IP (RBL)

…..

I was led to your company by the blocked email …..I discovered that you specifically did not provided a tool to challenge an RBL (you did for others) and that the email address you provided was blocked by the “black listing” within the system.

I then entered into a telephone dialogue with your technical director, Samantha Gurr, and an email dialogue with her and with Mariana Martín Yuste. You will see that this dialogue sets out the various blocks on my email.

The most important communication from your company came to me on 31 May 2007 as follows:

Hello Alan,

I have checked the problem with your IP addresses being blocked by our RBL service.

Please be informed the 3 IPs you have given us
195.188.213.6
195.188.213.7
195.188.213.8
were listed as part of a group of IPs (195.188.213.0/28) on Wednesday 23rd 2007 that were requested to be blocked. They were removed and put on probation on the 29th and now they are under revision but you should not have further problems sending emails.

I hope this information helps and that the problem is sorted on your side.

Regards, Mariana.

_______________________________________

Mariana Martín Yuste
Customer Care Specialist
Trend Micro Customer Care EMEA
Tel: +353 (0) 21 7307356
_______________________________________

This appears to establish that whilst you have not yourself put my IP on a “black list” you know who had. Unfortunately the promise that I would not have further problems was not fulfilled.

Your email of 30 May stated “Trend Micro customers can also block IPs by themselves. In this case the IPs will not be found in our list. Please contact the receiving email administrator.”

I had already contacted Virgin Media (their reference 477594 ) asking for a new IP number but they declined to provide it. I contacted them again (Their reference 407588 ) and this is the reply that I received.

“Please note that Virginmedia will not discuss the outcome of our investigation into this matter, nor divulge details of the account concerned. Unless we require further information from you, you will not receive any further communication from us in regards to the above reference number 407588.We want to make you aware that a few of our customers may have problems with their outgoing emails being bounced back to them. This is because some of our IP addresses are listed in a popular real-time block list called MAPS. We don’t like it when this happens and we’re working hard with MAPS to identify the cause of the original problem. We sincerely hope to have our email services back to normal as soon as possible.”

All of this suggests to me that you have set up a system whereby your customers can contravene Article 10 of the Human Rights Act 2000 and both you and Virgin Media at the very least collude with it when you certainly could do something to prevent it.

Despite my asking to know who had put my IP “on a black list” and why they had done so, and to challenge it – and you will see my emails of 5, 7 and 8 June – you have failed to acknowledge this or respond to it.

I take the most serious view of all this. I have not finally decided how to deal with it. Much will depend upon how you and Virgin Media reply. One option I have is to take this directly to the media. Another is to instruct my lawyers to deal with it and, in particular, to use the Freedom of Information Act to reveal the information I have not so far been able to obtain, as well as the dialogue that Virgin Media refers to in its email to me. It is clear that this “problem” is not mine alone.

I look for a clear and unqualified assurance that I am not on any “black list” in your system and, if you think that I should be in the future, you will give me an opportunity to question it. And I look for this response not later than 12 noon on Friday 15 June.

With that assurance I will myself bring this matter to a close. But I am sending a copy of this letter to Helena Kennedy QC in the hope that she will address the wider issues involved. She may take the view, as I do, that this exemplifies two of the matters that were of concern to her committee, namely the rise of undemocratic political forces and the rise of a ‘quiet authoritarianism’ within government.

Yours sincerely,
Alan Share

Enc.

Cc: Chief Executive, Virgin Media
Helena Kennedy QC

___________________________________________________________

Dear Mr. Share,

Having reviewed your correspondence with Samantha Gurr, our Head of Technical Support EMEA, and your email letter to my Department of last month, I should like to state that Trend Micro have not committed any breach of the laws you quoted with regard to any temporary inability on your part to properly use your email account(s) with your Internet Service Provider, Virgin Media.

While the Human Rights Act and the Freedom of Information Act are meant to create protection for individuals against governmental acts or omissions, Trend Micro as a company does fully subscribe to the principles underlying that legislation. It is our corporate mission to make the internet a safe(r) place for exchanging digital information. That is why we are in business and why we provide products and services helping our customers to communicate safely via the Web – despite all the problems with that widely abused tool that the House of Lords has recently been reported to address (please see at: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/10/lords_net_security_report/)

In pursuit of our corporate mission we offer our customers, amongst other services, protection against the huge issue caused by so-called spam mail. Spam is not only just a nuisance but also abused to commit cybercrime by implanting e.g. “Trojan Horses” into innocent private Personal Computers and turning them into “bots” or “zombies” that are commanded by “botmasters”. According to our research, an enormous amount of PC’s, without their owners even noticing this, have been instrumentalised by (criminal) botmasters for i.e. sending spam, spreading malware, blocking corporate or governmental networks or threaten to block them in order to extort “ransom” for releasing them from that blockage or threat. We are committed to fight such criminal abuses of the Internet. It is obvious from that background that private email connections like yours may be affected by anti-spam measurements, where there is no proper protection against malware attacks of that kind in place.

By such measurements as provided by our products and services we do however:

- NOT scan any emails with our Email Reputation Services (ERS),
- NOT block any IP address of any specific user,
- NOT block specifically any individual email accounts.

This is why we cannot provide you with any information of who may have reported your email account as a spamming account. There is no such report. Our anti-spam protection works on the ISP level in the first place.

In addition to the technical explanation you have already been provided, I hope this clarifies the legal concerns you raised.
Please address any further correspondence with Trend Micro on this matter only to me.

Sincerely yours,

Günter Untucht

________________________________________________________________

Dear Herr Untucht

Thank you for your email. I regret that I cannot square the following:

“By such measurements as provided by our products and services we do however:

- NOT scan any emails with our Email Reputation Services (ERS),
- NOT block any IP address of any specific user,
- NOT block specifically any individual email accounts.”

with:

“Hello Alan,

I have checked the problem with your IP addresses being blocked by our RBL service.

Please be informed the 3 IPs you have given us
195.188.213.6
195.188.213.7
195.188.213.8
were listed as part of a group of IPs (195.188.213.0/28) on Wednesday 23rd 2007 that were requested to be blocked. They were removed and put on probation on the 29th and now they are under revision but you should not have further problems sending emails.

I hope this information helps and that the problem is sorted on your side.

Regards, Mariana.
_______________________________________

Mariana Martín Yuste
Customer Care Specialist
Trend Micro Customer Care EMEA
Tel: +353 (0) 21 7307356
_______________________________________

It would appear to me that although you do not yourself scan emails, your subscribers do so. Further they use your system to censor emails, and you collude with them in direct contravention of Article 10 of the Human Rights Act – an Act not just applying to government as you wrongly suggest.

It may be that we are dealing with the “Wild West” in relation to Internet abuse, but that does not entitle you to be a self appointed sheriff.

I formally ask you to remove the block on my IP, and I again formally request you to tell me who requested the block on my IP and the reason for it.

An early reply would be appreciated.

Alan Share

PS (To my last email)

You might also like to consider why my service provider Virgin Media fails even to acknowledge a letter I sent to them in June. I copy it at the end of this email.

By the way I am sending this email as the last to Baroness Helena Kennedy QC for her attention.

Alan Share
________________________________________________________________

Dear Mr. Share,

I am happy to add the following final explanation to our correspondence.

You are a private customer – of Virgin Media. In the beginning, we may have used language that applies to our customers when they contact us for issues as raised by you. Many of them are enterprises that run their own mailservers. If we deal with a private user or not even a customer of ours is something that is not always clear in the first place. Therefore the wording “your IP Address” turned out to be wrong in your case, as it is actually the IP Address of Virgin Media (http://www.ripe.net/whois?form_type=simple&full_query_string=&searchtext=195.188.213.6&dosearch=Search).

Otherwise, our subscribers can create their own blacklists just as they like and can place even the entire Internet community on it should they so wish. This is not under our control and we cannot force anybody to whitelist any mailserver for any reason. Freedom of information also comprises the right to waive or stop any and all communication with anyone.

Yours sincerely,

Günter Untucht
________________________________________________________________

Dear Herr Untucht

I am at a total loss to understand why you appear incapable of answering a simple question with a simple yes or no answer.

Is my ISP on your “black list”? Yes or No.
If it is, can I remove my ISP from that “black list”? Yes or No.

Yours sincerely,
Alan Share
________________________________________________________________

I know that I am not universally approved of in academic circles. (Revisit Post 6)

I cannot object if some in Academia prefers not to communicate with me, and delete my emails without reading them. I do object if someone does this for them.

I never did find out who put me on Trend Micro’s Registered Black List, the reason I was there and how I might remove myself from it. I never found out what Helena Kennedy QC thought about it. My service provider Virgin Media declined to enter into any discussion about it. And so far as I know emails to councillors are still being “steamed open”, sorry “filtered”, to prevent spam.

I can however tell you that someone, I know not who, has now kindly removed my name from the black list.

If Departments of State, Local Government and public and private companies were obliged to log formal complaints against them on the Net it might do something to head off this sort of problem. It would lend substance to the words “transparency” and “accountability” that politicians of all parties so often pay lip service to.

Why have the snap, crackle and pop of MPs’ expenses when you can have a chargrilled steak instead? Over to you David Aaronovitch.

(more…)

Before I begin let me remind you of two things.

First, these blogs are like life’s experiences, to be read backwards, or like memory, to be dipped into as fancy takes you. (Revisit Posts 10 and 23).This is where senior citizens have a big advantage over the rest, but those of you just starting out can enjoy a free ride, or an inexpensive one. You can buy “Death of a Nightingale” – the royalties go to my charitable fund – or you can make a donation from this website. Either way you will have the satisfaction of helping children with special needs take a holiday in London they would not otherwise be able to afford .

Secondly, these Posts are not just one long moan. As I say in the Prologue, “All is not bad. There are opportunities as never before for those who can seize them. And pleasures abound for those who can afford them, or have been shown where to look for them.” Hence my charitable fund to help facilitate that for children with special needs and their families.

Revisit Post 17 “The World’s Greatest Musical Prodigies”, and you will see where my hopes lie.

But let me get back to the nitty gritty, to the essence of it all. In this Post I am going to write about money and power. People get upset about the “money” side of capitalism, especially clerics. They should be more concerned about the abuse of power, the power that money brings; it is also the power that communism, socialism, yes even our democracy brings. And when I talk about the abuse of power, I am talking about power over people, religious as well as secular, commercial as well as political.

Power does not exist in a vacuum. And all too often today it is an “iron fist disguised in velvet glove”

First revisit a couple more Posts.

Go back to Post 19 “Are you a lion or a gazelle?” and two quotations

Act One Scene 3

Margaret Williamson, the head teacher, Emma Kirk, the music teacher, Joan Errington the English teacher, and Wendy Robinson, a non-teaching care assistant, talk in the staff room about staff training. They somehow find the time.

EMMA KIRK I know another part of the trouble. It’s them folk that prattle on about the evils of capitalism and competition. Oh yes it is. That’s why we don’t win things. Why we have so few sporting heroes of our own. If we want to enjoy them, we have to import them. Then call the football team Chelsea. Them folk, the poor little lambs that have lost their way, baa baa baa. They don’t like competition. Poor little things. Tell that to the Chinese. Today their students are keeping our universities going. Why? To compete. Competition’s a part of life. Wanting to be somebody is part of real living. Earning and spending our dosh makes the world go round, now don’t it? Sure these things are not the be all and the end all, but those folk who moan on about these things are just running scared of life They expect the State to tie their bootlaces for them. That’s no good way to be. Now is it?

And later on in the same Scene

EMMA KIRK The Bible got there long before that. The Tenth Commandment. Thou shalt not covet. No sin in owning Just sin in coveting.

MARGARET WILLIAMSON No sin in owning? How do you get your camel through the eye of a needle, Emma?

EMMA KIRK Those gates of Heaven are still a titchy bit open for those rolling in it. It’s not owning riches that’s the problem. It’s what you do with them. Money makes the world go round. I’ll tell you something. I know the Bible says you can’t serve God and Mammon. It doesn’t say it’s a sin to go shopping with it. Anyway, that’s not the point I’m making. You’ve got to admire what folk make of their lives when they make a success of it.

JOAN ERRINGTON Well our kids go along with that. It’s so much healthier to rejoice in someone else’s achievement than to envy it. And they do, they really do. And we have to encourage it all the time.

And let’s go back to my last Post

Act Two Scene 8

Eileen Winterton, the chair of Governors, sums it all up with Margaret Williamson

MARGARET WILLIAMSON Sacrificial pawns, Judith. And for everyone else it’s “Snakes and Ladders“, with more snakes than ladders.

EILEEN WINTERTON In Enron there was another name for it. They called it “rank or yank“. You were “ranked” if you played ball with them, “yanked“, sacked, if you didn’t. Well, no-one blew the whistle, and people lost billions of dollars and their jobs.

Again revisit Post 24 “The Worm at the Core of the Apple”.

These paragraphs, which I repeat here, get to the nub of it.

The Prologue

The recent Power Report pointed to “the weakening of effective dialogue between governed and governors” and “the rise of quiet authoritarianism within government.”

If I can remove the wrapping paper, it is saying that our democracy is often just a sham, and that the problem is not so much spin as twist. It is a serious criticism of those who wield power – the subtle and not so subtle pressures they exercise – the patronage they use to get their way. It should be no surprise that lawyers, accountants, academics and others, from time to time compromise strict standards of professional behaviour and play word games instead. I have seen it happen.

If the System does look itself in the mirror, it needs to recognise that the mirror itself is a distorting one. Will it do even that? Sad to say, the report has already been allowed to gather dust.

I want to draw all these threads together here; but first one other little lesson from life. I have long believed that life is “interesting on the margins.” It can be a terrible bore otherwise. Consistently with that I was curious to know where my heading “Iron fist in a velvet glove” came from, and with the aid of Google I found this:

http://web.mit.edu/gtmarx/www/iron.htmlThe Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove: Totalitarian Potentials Within Democratic Structures.

This is how it ends:

Should totalitarianism ever come to the United States it is likely to occur by accretion rather than by cataclysmic event. As Sinclair Lewis argued (It Can’t Happen Here), it would come in traditional American guise, with the gradual erosion of liberties.

Voluntary participation, beneficent rationales, and changes in cultural definition and language hide the onerous aspects of the new surveillance.

As Justice Brandeis has warned:

Experience should teach us to be most on our guard when the government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning, but without understanding [Olmstead, 1927].

The first task of a society that would have liberty and privacy is to guard against the misuse of physical coercion on the part of the state and private parties. The second task is to guard against the softer forms of secret and manipulative control. Because they are subtle, indirect, invisible, diffuse, deceptive, and shrouded in benign justifications, this is clearly the more difficult task.

The point to this particular “needle”, the essence of this Post, is to understand not just how power is used or misused, but our increasing vulnerability to it.

Many are directly employed by the State and will retain or enhance that employment by being subservient to it. Many are not employed by the State but owe their livelihood to it. Lawyers get briefs. They aspire to become QCs or Judges – State appointments. Leading firms of accountants and Academia get millions of pounds worth of consultation work from Departments of State. None of them will want to be too argumentative or too “independent.” All have families to feed, and a comfortable retirement to look forward to.

Beyond that, the State controls where children are educated as well as the medicines that we are entitled to. It now has a stake in our banks and building societies that control our money supply. If you really want to worry, look up what happened in Malta when Dom Mintoff took over the banks in the ’70s.

The dependency culture goes well beyond the Welfare State.

This is how I sum it up:

Act One Scene 5

Margaret Williamson is made to feel like “a little lump of plasticine” in the hands of David Harding, Wexborough’s Director of Education.

MARGARET WILLIAMSON Tell me, am I a mouse in a trap or a rat leaving a sinking ship?

DAVID HARDING Neither, you’re just doing the job you’re paid to do, like everyone else. When you are employed by the State you’re not paid to ask questions. In particular, you’re not paid to ask yourself any questions. That’s not part of your job description, and it’s incompatible with Health and Safety Regulations.

MARGARET WILLIAMSON When you’re employed by the State, you don’t have to be brain dead but it helps. Of course this is how the Germans and the Russians learnt how to survive their little dictatorships.

Remember that with every Stalin or Hitler, there are lots of little Stalins and little Hitlers.

I do not need to be original here. Just visit http://freedomkeys.com/vigil.htm

This is one of my favourite quotations: “The attempt to make heaven on earth invariably produces hell.” — Karl Popper

Revisit Post 23 “Another Bite into a Wormy Apple”

“I give you the first and, so far as I am concerned, the last law of good civil administration: Those who serve the public should be fully accountable to the public.”

This won’t happen of its own accord.

Realistically there will always be an iron fist in a velvet glove. What this means is that the individual needs to be provided withsome body armour.

(more…)

If I had to nominate one sentence in my book that expressed what I am about and what the book is about, it would be Joan Errington, the English teacher, saying in the last scene of the second act “I really do wish someone would expose the lousy, stinking, hypocritical charade of those who put it about that they care.”

I allow the words of Death of a Nightingale to illustrate this without further explanation from me.

The Prologue

Then there are all those working in the public service who feel obliged to do some things they know they shouldn’t be doing, or not do things that they should. There are school governors, and people like them, who are doing valuable voluntary work within the community, but who are deliberately denied the tools to do it properly by those who prefer to do it themselves, but want to make it look otherwise.

It is the System that needs looking at, the con in consultation, the charade of partnership, the make-believe, and as a result, the mess of much of it.

Act One, Scene 2

James Harrington, the mandarin from the DfES, David Harding, the Director of Education for Wexborough and Gerry Thompson an SEN controller meet in the regional office. James wants more progress on Inclusion.

JAMES HARRINGTON ….. You have got to win over the parents. I think you need something a bit more subtle. Look at it this way. They have a bird in their hands, and they like it. We are offering them, as they see it, two in the bush. Where’s their next dinner coming from? Not from the bush unless we make their bird look a bit less appetising.

DAVID HARDING I hope you are not going to get me into trouble with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

JAMES HARRINGTON And I hope you are not a covert animal rights activist.

DAVID HARDING Well what are you actually proposing.

JAMES HARRINGTON I am not proposing anything.

DAVID HARDING Suggesting, then.

JAMES HARRINGTON I’m not suggesting anything either. This is a journey of exploration.

DAVID HARDING Or a safari where the wild beasts roam.

JAMES HARRINGTON And vultures fly overhead ready to scavenge their next meal. Come on, it’s up to you how you manage this. Basically if a lot of the kids in this school go to mainstream schools this school is just not going to be viable. You know that. It can’t be making best use of your financial resources. You are just going to have to push things along a bit faster in that direction. It’ll be unpleasant, but really run the School down. When you finally deliver the message that the School has to close there’ll be no great argument.

DAVID HARDING It’ll actually run itself down, as we admit fewer kids to it. Some redundancies will be unavoidable and they won’t be able to deliver the national curriculum.

GERRY THOMPSON The bird’s already beginning to look a bit sick. Their roll came down last year by nine pupils

JAMES HARRINGTON The key is to get the Head teacher on side. You really must try to do that.

DAVID HARDING To get the egg to accept the frying pan. You’re right. The parents have got a lot of time for her. They trust her. If she argues the case for closure it will be much, much better than if we do. And the staff will go along with it too. There should be no problem getting the School Organisation Committee to go along with the closure after that.

Act One, Scene 5

David Harding and Gerry Thompson turn the screw on Margaret Williamson, the head teacher.

DAVID HARDING Will you help us? If you do, you’ll end up with a much better chance of a headship elsewhere. There’s one coming up in the next couple of years in Grovewood Comprehensive School. And there may be a job for your English teacher too. We do have a little influence in these things, you know.

MARGARET WILLIAMSON I really don’t know whether I’m hearing you right. Are you seriously saying that you want me to betray my kids?

DAVID HARDING Not betray them. Look to their best long term interests.

GERRY THOMPSON We don’t want another public confrontation between the school and the LEA. That’s no good for anyone, is it? And it can’t be good for you or your colleagues. It just sours everything when we are trying to pull together and get things right for your kids.

DAVID HARDING Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.

MARGARET WILLIAMSON You admit that you’re being cruel.

DAVID HARDING But I am trying to be kind. Look, you have said that half your School roll would fit into mainstream.

MARGARET WILLIAMSON Yes, if you can get it right for them.

DAVID HARDING That’s what we have to do.

GERRY THOMPSON That’s our job now.

MARGARET WILLIAMSON But you haven’t really started it.

DAVID It’s what we have to do. OFSTED will be on our backs if we don’t.

MARGARET WILLIAMSON I thought OFSTED was interested in standards and wouldn’t like what you are suggesting.

DAVID HARDING You misread it. They’ll turn a blind eye to it. They won’t put a black mark against you or your school while this is going on. And when they inspect us they’re only interested in whether we are delivering government policy and meeting government targets. That’s the way that things get done.

MARGARET WILLIAMSON And people get done.

GERRY THOMPSON Margaret, just look two years ahead. Fewer kids. Less money. Fewer staff. Do you think you personally, never mind the School, can face an OFSTED inspection.

MARGARET WILLIAMSON I’ll have to if that’s what the parents want.

DAVID HARDING Look, we’re all in the same boat. Can’t you see that? If you lose half your school, do you really think that you can deliver the national curriculum to the rest?

MARGARET WILLIAMSON It wouldn’t be easy.

DAVID HARDING It wouldn’t be possible. And meanwhile you’ll have a battle royal on your hands. The parents will be on your back and on ours, and don’t think you can escape the backwash. You’ll still need another job sometime. You must see that you will have queered your own pitch. People will be looking for reasons not to appoint you. You must see the danger of that.

MARGARET WILLIAMSON I haven’t much alternative then?

DAVID HARDING None.

MARGARET WILLIAMSON Tell me, am I a mouse in a trap or a rat leaving a sinking ship?

DAVID HARDING Neither, you’re just doing the job you’re paid to do, like everyone else. When you are employed by the State you’re not paid to ask questions. In particular, you’re not paid to ask yourself any questions. That’s not part of your job description, and it’s incompatible with Health and Safety Regulations.

MARGARET WILLIAMSON When you’re employed by the State, you don’t have to be brain
dead but it helps. Of course this is how the Germans and the Russians learnt how to survive their little dictatorships.

Act One Scene 6

Margaret Williamson shares her plight with her friend Joan Errington, the English teacher.

MARGARET WILLIAMSON That’s so true. They gave me no choice. They really didn’t. The Government wants schools like ours closed. They think it’ll save money which it won’t. They pass the buck to the local authorities to do their dirty work for them and the local authority passes the buck to me. God, what a lousy world.

JOAN ERRINGTON I can see what’s going on. They don’t want another losing confrontation with parents at all costs.

MARGARET WILLIAMSON You know what I feel like? I feel like a lump of plasticine, a little lump of plasticine that they have twisted in to a shape of their own choosing.

Act Two Scene 8

Eileen Winterton, the chair of Governors, sums it all up with Margaret Williamson

MARGARET WILLIAMSON Sacrificial pawns, Judith. And for everyone else it’s “Snakes and Ladders”, with more snakes than ladders.

EILEEN WINTERTON In Enron there was another name for it. They called it “rank or yank”. You were “ranked” if you played ball with them, “yanked”, sacked, if you didn’t. Well, no-one blew the whistle, and people lost billions of dollars and their jobs.

And I sum it all up here:

The Prologue

The recent Power Report pointed to “the weakening of effective dialogue between governed and governors” and “the rise of quiet authoritarianism within government.”

If I can remove the wrapping paper, it is saying that our democracy is often just a sham, and that the problem is not so much spin as twist. It is a serious criticism of those who wield power – the subtle and not so subtle pressures they exercise – the patronage they use to get their way. It should be no surprise that lawyers, accountants, academics and others, from time to time compromise strict standards of professional behaviour and play word games instead. I have seen it happen.

If the System does look itself in the mirror, it needs to recognise that the mirror itself is a distorting one. Will it do even that? Sad to say, the report has already been allowed to gather dust.

Care and take care. MPs’ expenses are important, but they are just a side show.

(more…)

These Posts are a bit like life’s experiences. (Revisit Post 10). They are to be read backwards.

Let me remind you how I begin Death of a Nightingale:

Prologue

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

TS Elliot, Four Quartets, Little Gidding 1942

My purpose in introducing you to Sir Humphrey Plumbton in the last Post was not to see how long it would take you to realise that he was just another of my fictional characters. It was to try to give you a better understanding of the mind set of his nephew, James Harrington, the mandarin in the play.

Let me also remind you of my first Post. (Revisit Post 1) “But make no mistake; the credit crunch is only one slice of a wormy apple.”

MP’s expenses are, of course, another slice of the same apple.

There is an old story. When you bite into an apple, what is worse than finding a worm? The answer is finding half a worm. When I was actively involved helping parents make a success of their fight to keep their special school open, on the face of it the issue seemed to centre on whether it was or wasn’t a good idea. In fact the parents were not just fighting a bad idea for their school; they were fighting those who were trying to implement a bad idea.

This time I am looking at the very core of the wormy apple, the civil service.

I had plenty of time, years in fact, to study this. Sir Humphrey Plumbton and James Harrington exemplify the conclusions that I have reached. While we rail against politicians, we would do better to look more closely at those they work with, namely civil servants.

Increasingly politicians come across as mindless puppets in a Punch and Judy Show, with no will of their own, or now maybe better described as well oiled little cogs in an old and treasured piece of clockwork. As Sir Humphrey put it in my ventriloquist act in my last Post, “Politicians serve their officials, not the other way round. They provide the first line of defence to attack. They take the blame. They provide the safety valve for the system. Then, ultimately, if the civil service gets it wrong, they lose their seats!” So, let us consider civil servants.

There would be no drama in Death of a Nightingale, if the “Plumbtons” and “Harringtons” of this world did not have a good case.

Act One Scene 3

James Harrington, the mandarin from the DfES, Judy Fotheringham, a regional official within the DfES, David Harding, the Director of Education, and Gerry Thompson, a special needs co-ordinator, meet. James Harrington is looking for action on special school closures.

JAMES HARRINGTON The other, of course, is how you get the show back on the road. We need that. You see I was at the UNESCO conference at Salamanca in ninety four. Nearly a hundred countries all saying that children with special needs had a right to mainstream education. That certainly galvanised us into action. I’ve never seen Parliament move so fast, and so decisively.

Don’t think that the Minister doesn’t realise that change can be a bit painful. He knows that in every good parent there is a Luddite trying to get out. In many cases they like what they have but they have no understanding of the world that we are trying to create for them and their kids. It’s your job Gerry to illuminate them, to show them the way to truth and light.

GERRY THOMPSON I know. I had a really good grounding at my university, under Professor Hopwood. A real visionary.

JAMES HARRINGTON Know him well. He has advised us a number of times.

DAVID HARDING Yes, we’ve used him too for training.

JAMES HARRINGTON Academia has been very supportive. They do know which side of their bread is buttered on. Anyway, the policy of Inclusion could not have a better provenance. Baroness Warnock led the way more than twenty years ago. That’s when it was very enlightened. Now there’s all party consensus. And it has the full support of all the leading disability organisations. Mind has been particularly helpful. Their President Lord Rix pushed hard for it. He and his daughter had a hard time of it, badly discriminated against by the old system. Blunkett, too.

GERRY THOMPSON There’s plenty of other parents that feel the same way. Feel their kids should get an equal chance in a mainstream comp.

DAVID HARDING Of course not all parents agree. That’s the basic problem.

JAMES HARRINGTON People like Gerry will win them over. You just have to. You see the Treasury has made up its mind that there are savings to be made here if they invest in it. You know the figures. Three per cent of children have special needs but they gobble up eight per cent of the total spend on education. That really isn’t equitable.

DAVID HARDING Between these four walls I don’t think Inclusion is going to be a cheap option.

JAMES HARRINGTON Well leading accountants advised us that we could make some real savings simply by reducing the number of Statements LEAs have to write for children with special needs. Get that down by a third, reduce special school places by the same, and then hey presto you don’t need all those special schools. And writing Statements is a real headache. We’ll have to keep some schools for kids with profound difficulties or very complex behavioural problems, but most can go.

DAVID HARDING Hm. Accountants. Some are just calculating machines on legs. They play with figures and talk about outcomes. They leave us to deal with people and try to meet their needs. They’re just not street wise. They manage us when we should be managing them. The savings won’t be there if we do our job. Mark my words.

JAMES HARRINGTON You may well be right, especially to begin with. The Treasury has agreed to cough up millions to adapt mainstream schools, and we will obviously have to commit ourselves to training. We are currently trying to work out the actual cost now. It’s not easy though. There’s a major study just started.

DAVID HARDING Good luck to it. I look forward to seeing the results. I just hope you haven’t provided them.

JAMES HARRINGTON You’re a cynic. Anyway, just you keep your doubts to yourself. Money is where money needs to be is my motto. We can’t go back now.

***

DAVID HARDING (with a smile) You know, James Harrington is totally, totally without shame.

JUDY FOTHERINGHAM I don’t agree. He’s probably a bit like me. I’m not immune to shame. Very, very occasionally I do take my conscience to bed with me, but when I do, and it isn’t very often, I leave it on the breakfast table the following morning. We’re always going to be upsetting somebody, not meeting their needs. It’s in the nature of our job. We’re interested in outcomes. Fortunately for us, most of those people who don’t like what we’re doing just sound off in the pub. Our life would be impossible if everyone was like the parents in your school.

GERRY THOMPSON I’m absolutely certain his visit won’t give him any sleepless nights at all. Most likely he’ll go back home, and open a bottle of Chateau Mouton Rothschild.

DAVID HARDING Well, Merlot Chateau Sainsbury for me. I’m sure you’re right.

GERRY THOMPSON We couldn’t do without people like Harrington. Nothing would get done. I’m sure that fella will go places.

DAVID HARDING In this world or the next? You know I believe his father was high up in the Indian Civil Service. That’s where he must have got his superiority complex.

Yes, the civil service does have a good case, but is it good enough?

By and large the civil servants have integrity of purpose and, as Gerry Thompson rightly says, “Nothing would get done” without them. However, governments of all political persuasions come and go, but cock-ups continue unabated.

It is not that civil servants are not for the most part extremely courteous and generous with their time. They are. The problem is their underlying arrogance, their insensitivity, their stubbornness and, ruling all, their self interest. This is a real problem when some do not have the know-how to make them good at their job, or when others that have, feel obliged to keep their heads below the parapet.

I quote in Death of a Nightingale a similar malaise in the USA.

Notes & Quotes

From Leadership by Rudolph Giuliani

The New York City school system was never really going to improve until its purpose, its core mission, was made clear. What the system should have been about was educating its million children as well as possible. Instead, it existed to provide jobs for the people who worked in it, and to preserve those jobs regardless of performance. That’s not to say that there weren’t committed professionals at every level within the system. There were, and that’s the shame of it. Those with their hearts in the right place were the ones who suffered most.

Until I could get everyone involved to sit together and agree that the system existed to educate children, fixing little bits of it was symbolic at best. Band-Aid solutions can do more harm than good. The system needed a new philosophy. It needed to say we’re not a job protection system but a system at its core about children’s enrichment. All rewards and risks must flow from the performance of the children.

So here I give you the first and, so far as I am concerned, the last law of good civil administration: Those who serve the public should be fully accountable to the public.

I have already suggested in Post 2 that OFSTED should examine the handling of all formal complaints against LEAs, make this part of their official report, and be obliged to put it into the public domain. I also urged that the TV programme “Watchdog” should expose administrative cock-ups.

We have an Ombudsman positioned to provide the citizen with a check on the abuse of power by the civil service. As matters stand those serving on public bodies such as Boards of Governors have no right of access with a complaint unless they can show personal loss.

Here is another suggestion. Empower the Ombudsman to take all complaints from any UK citizen against State mismanagement or malpractice when all other forms of complaint have been exhausted, and again put the report into the public domain.

MPs are currently being shamed into putting their house in order. It is high time that the civil service was also shamed into put its house in order too in every tier of government.

I invite Helena Kennedy QC, who chaired the “Power Inquiry”, to throw her weight behind this. In fact, I challenge her to do so.

I repeat here what I said in my first post. “Can you think of any other small things that would help to empower people? Remember, a game of chess consists of many small moves, the largest wall many tiny bricks.”

(more…)

Who is Sir Humphrey? He had a long and distinguished service with successive Conservative and Labour administrations in the Civil Service. In his retirement he published many books and papers, notably “Capitalism Without a Conscience – A Worm’s Eye View”, “Life in the Silo – a Study of the British Civil Service”, and a training manual for politicians of all parties, entitled “Know your Place”.

Some time ago I came across this extract from a report that he prepared:

I would only add one further comment on the issue of Inclusion itself.

In a paper entitled ‘The Pliability of Fact in the Decision Making Process’ by Vladimir Mulenchik, a Hungarian émigré who entered this country in 1956, (translated by David Hilton) and published in the late nineteen fifties, Vladimir Mulenchik pointed out that there was no absolute fact or truth in politics. There was only an illusion of it. This was as important to the world of Politics as Einstein’s work on the Theory of Relativity was in relation to Physics.

It is quite facile to believe that politicians must resign every time they tell a lie. If there is no absolute truth, correspondingly there cannot be an absolute lie!

That is not what it is all about. What it is about is that there is an illusion of truth, an illusion of competence and integrity.

Ministers resign, Governments fall, Mikhail Gorbachev goes in disgrace when they shatter that illusion, when they call into question administrative competence and integrity. Sometimes, of course, it is very important that they should not resign because the resignation itself shatters that illusion. For the same reason, they should be urged not apologise for mistakes made. This is as much to protect our backs as their faces.

Let me tell you quite precisely about the greatest illusion of all in politics. It is widely thought that politicians in central and local government are served by their officials. Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister gave their tacit blessing to that illusion. The sagacity and guile of Sir Humphrey regularly saved the Minister, Jim Hacker, from the dire consequences of his own simple minded and populist ineptitude.

The reality is very different. Politicians act as lightening conductors for the bolts that should fly in the direction of inept civil servants, but only very rarely strike them. I have alluded to this earlier.

That is the way of it. The illusion is reverse image of the reality. Politicians serve their officials, not the other way round. They provide the first line of defence to attack. They take the blame. They provide the safety valve for the system. Then, ultimately, if the civil service gets it wrong, they lose their seats!

We understand that from time to time MPs and Councillors have to sound off and have to appear to be supportive of the interests of their constituents, but the Whips’ Offices are there to ensure that they do not overreach themselves. Patronage from 10 Downing Street is also quite a useful resource. We ought really to talk in terms of whips and carrots rather than sticks and carrots as tools of control and influence.

What is critical to that finely balanced relationship is the consistency of policy, the apparent competence of both officials and politicians and the incorruptibility of the system as a whole.

It is on the strength of that that politicians are re-elected, or not, as the case may be.

In other words, politicians come and politicians go, but we go on for ever or, at least, as long as we choose to. It is a very good system that has proved its worth over many years.

It may be subject to the criticism of inertia and insensitivity or, as the narrative alleges, myopia combined with tunnel vision, but it makes the British Civil Service the very best in the world and the envy of all democratic nations.

It is in this context that we must address the issue of Inclusion in Education.

We know full well that Inclusion is a much used, in fact over-used, word. It now means everything and nothing. But all Parties are now publicly committed to it. And some of the Governing Party’s leading activists see it as an article of faith and use it as a mantra to make wholesome their egalitarian concepts. Their continuing support for the ruling party cannot be ignored, especially when other aspects of their views on egalitarianism in education have to be bypassed.

There is a limit to the number of U-turns that can be contemplated at any one time if the illusion of competence is to be sustained. We have to accept that dogma uber alles can never be an entirely alien proposition in either of the two main political parties in Britain. Pragmatism without dogma is like a ship without a rudder. That is one reason why the third party is the third party in British politics.

We have, in any event, a very clear policy to try to curtail the number of children Statemented for special education to limit its cost. We have a policy going back to the last Conservative Government when we advised them to close special schools and discourage parents from pursuing this option in the exercise of their choice for the education of their children. It ought not to be discarded, simply because its logic is now being called into question.

We are fortunate that anyone seeking to qualify Inclusion in some way is widely perceived as being an arch reactionary.

We are also fortunate that we can use, for our gospel, the UNESCO Salamanca Agreement World Statement on Special Education Needs, 1994. This stated that schools are “the most effective means of combating discriminatory attitudes, creating welcoming communities, building an inclusive society and achieving education for all. Moreover, they provide an effective education to the majority of children and improve the efficiency and ultimately, the cost effectiveness of the entire education system.” This is, of course, a generalisation that totally ignores the legal imperative established by our judiciary to meet individual needs. It also ignores many consequential factors, not least costs, stress, strain, and the new word burn-out, in mainstream schools. The authors of the document actually had no evidence whatsoever for its assertion about cost effectiveness!

Furthermore, for quite a number of children with special needs, it can only reflect an aspiration rather than an expectation But it validates the policy none-the-less.

What all this means is that you do not change direction at every gust of wind, but you do have to tack into it when it blows, if you do not want your political master to capsize.

It is a pity about poor Mr. Mandelson! Civil Servants should have watched his back, even if he didn’t. Unfortunately, neither he nor they studied the Training Manual “Know your Place .”

For the sake of historical record, I should record that Sir Humphrey Plumbton is the highly distinguished, very eminent uncle of James Harrington, the Mandarin in my play, and is therefore my invention, as is “The Pliability of Fact in the Decision Making Process.” Vladimir Mulenchik was the original invention of David Hilton, a very good friend in my Oxford University days, and a Liberal. Accordingly all the words above are mine, and were written a few years ago, hence the reference to Peter Mandelson.

Very sadly David died in a road accident where he was the victim. David sustained the role of Vladimir Mulenchik for two hours in a Liberal Discussion Group in Manchester with everyone throughout believing that he was none other than a Hungarian émigré. Then Liberals are very trusting people. I am very happy to dedicate this Post to his memory.

Act One Scene 1

Margaret Williamson, head teacher, Emma Kirk, the Music teacher, and Tracy, a pupil, are introducing new parents, Anwar and Judith Fawzi together with their son Harry, a boy with brittle bones, to the School.

MARGARET WILLIAMSON This School is certainly no dead end and there’s precious little bullying either. That’s a huge blessing.

EMMA KIRK Some people have described it as a ghetto.

MARGARET WILLIAMSON A ghetto – those people don’t know what a ghetto is – and they don’t know this School. We’re a great big family. That’s what we are. A great big happy family. I must tell you about Tracy’s great claim to fame. At one of our Presentation evenings – you know we have lots of fun and entertainment as well as prize giving on these great occasions – well, she caught my predecessor full in the face with a custard pie… she was supposed to miss.

TRACY He was supposed to duck. I paid the price the following year. I was asked to be Jack in the Box. I was inside that box for ages. He said he forgot I was there. Do you believe that?

MARGARET Do you believe anything in this world Tracy? That’s one of the lessons we teach you.

And these Posts, too.

Act Two, Scene 2

Joan Errington, the English teacher, and Eileen Winterton, chair of governors, are trying to understand.

JOAN ERRINGTON I agree. They are looking for solutions to the world’s problems in the libraries of their minds, not in the classrooms of the real world.

EILEEN WINTERTON Of course it’s not just Karl Marx you know. The Achilles’ heel of the Liberal is naiveté. And, when you don’t know you’re naïve, well it’s highly dangerous.

JOAN ERRINGTON Insanity. King Lear.

EILEEN WINTERTON No, I’d put it another way. You can actually care too much. You can you know, if that blinds you to uncomfortable reality

The point to this particular needle – you shouldn’t believe everything people say about special schools, Inclusion, and maybe some other things as well. In the words of the old song “It ain’t necessarily so.”

This time I am going to write about the way in which some children with special needs go to a mainstream school while others go to a special school.

I warn you. If you feel for the difficulties that parents of these children have to face every day (revisit Post 16 “Born to be different”), it is not good news. You might think that while Governments have to govern, these parents deserve better from society than having also to deal with unsympathetic officialdom working to a political agenda set and funded in Whitehall, and monitored by OFSTED. (Revisit Post 2 to understand this.)

A few quotes from my play will help you to understand it a little more.

Author’s Note

There are about 400,000 children with learning difficulties of one sort or another. The Department of Health White Paper Valuing People envisages an annual increase of around one per cent of children with severe learning difficulties. If their parents want them to be educated in a Special School, they need to receive a Statement.

Statementing is a bureaucratic process under the control of Local Education Authorities (LEAs). It could be, and it should be a multidisciplinary one, but it isn’t. It is regulated by Law and it is designed to define the very different needs of children requiring special attention, and the way those needs are to be met. It is a passport to admission to a special school that is impossible without it.

Act One, Scene 2

James Harrington, the Mandarin from the DFES and David Harding, the Director of Education for Wexborough are discussing how to secure the closure of Brighouse School.

JAMES HARRINGTON People like Gerry will win them over. You just have to. You see the Treasury has made up its mind that there are savings to be made here if they invest in it. You know the figures. Three per cent of children have special needs but they gobble up eight per cent of the total spend on education. That really isn’t equitable.

DAVID HARDING Between these four walls I don’t think Inclusion is going to be a cheap option.

JAMES HARRINGTON Well leading accountants advised us that we could make some real savings simply by reducing the number of Statements LEAs have to write for children with special needs. Get that down by a third, reduce special school places by the same, and then hey presto you don’t need all those special schools. And writing Statements is a real headache. We’ll have to keep some schools for kids with profound difficulties or very complex behavioural problems, but most can go.

DAVID HARDING Hm. Accountants. Some are just calculating machines on legs. They play with figures and talk about outcomes. They leave us to deal with people and try to meet their needs. They’re just not street wise. They manage us when we should be managing them. The savings won’t be there if we do our job. Mark my words.

JAMES HARRINGTON You may well be right, especially to begin with. The Treasury has agreed to cough up millions to adapt mainstream schools, and we will obviously have to commit ourselves to training. We are currently trying to work out the actual cost now. It’s not easy though. There’s a major study just started.

DAVID HARDING Good luck to it. I look forward to seeing the results. I just hope you haven’t provided them.

I should add here that if parents are unhappy with a Statement provided by a Local Education Authority they can always go to a Tribunal. It is a nice question whether this is more than a charade. I shall come to it.

Act One, Scene 3

Margaret Williamson, head teacher and Wendy Robinson, non-teaching care assistant, are talking in the staff room.

MARGARET WILLIAMSON Meanwhile our great government can’t make up its mind whether we are a part of one large sausage machine, or a lot of small sausage machines, and they keep coming up with more and more paper plans, more and more targets.

WENDY ROBINSON They certainly keep themselves fully employed. Good intentions maybe, but so had my Aunt Mabel.

MARGARET WILLIAMSON Who is your Aunt Mabel, Wendy?

WENDY ROBINSON She doesn’t actually exist. But in our family we always blamed her when things went wrong.

MARGARET WILLIAMSON No, she exists alright. She works alongside Murphy. Did you not know? I’ll tell you exactly where she is. Mum wants little Johnny to come to this school. Thinks it’ll meet Johnny’s needs. The medics agree. We agree, and we’ve got a place for him – and the more kids in this school the less on average each one costs. Yes? But no, Murphy who’s not wired up to what we do decides the fate of little Johnny and wants to send him somewhere else, and Mabel, who of course is legally qualified, chairs the tribunal that decides what’s in Johnny’s best interests so long as it makes the best use of economic resources, and she goes along with Murphy. Mabel’s word is final. But you can appeal against it. To whom? I’ll give you one guess….To the ever courteous, totally dependable Mabel. The needs of little Johnny are supposed to be paramount, but they get lost somewhere along the way. What a crazy mixed up world. They’ll give the job to a computer next. You watch.

When the Tribunal looks at the requirement that their decision should make “the best use of economic resources”, they do not look at the big picture. Cost benefit analysis is not part of their remit. I am not at all sure that they always look at the small picture either.

Act Two, Scene 4

At a public meeting with parents David Harding, Director of Education for Wexborough, and Gerry Thompson, a Special Needs Coordinator, fend off questions from Anwar Fawzi, a parent, and other questioners.

ANWAR FAWZI Are you trying to get rid of Statements?

DAVID HARDING They are more trouble than they are worth.

ANWAR FAWZI For you maybe, but not for us.

DAVID HARDING We do have to meet the needs of your children whatever a piece of paper says or doesn’t say.

ANWAR FAWZI But we lose our right to a special school for our kids. What about parental choice, hey? What about our choice? Where’s that gone?

QUESTIONER A (In the first row of the real audience) I had a great problem getting my Stephen into this school. Had to take it through a tribunal. Much good are your new ideas going to do for Stephen. I think you’ve tried to starve this school of pupils.

DAVID HARDING Gerry, would you answer that?

GERRY THOMPSON We’re back to individual cases again. They’re all different, and some are difficult to decide. Yours was probably one of them.

QUESTIONER B (In the first row of the audience) Some kids will do well in mainstream. What about the rest? Mine has speech problems. She really suffered in mainstream schools before she came here.

DAVID HARDING You really have got to trust us to work that out at the time. There are still going to be some special schools, you know. We’ll do our level best to respect parental preference.

But can you really trust them? You might like to copy this link into your browser: http://www.ipsea.org.uk/tribunal-rules-08.htm I am not alone here.

Act Two, Scene 7

Brighouse school is being demolished. Emma Kirk, the Music teacher, Judith and Anwar Fawzi, parents, Margaret Williamson, head teacher and Eileen Winterton, chair of governors are watching.

EMMA KIRK They don’t understand. Schools like this have the gift of healing, and they engage the spirit. That’s what’s so good about them. They just don’t understand.

JUDITH FAWZI I really do wish someone would expose the lousy, stinking, hypocritical charade of those who put it about that they care. They say the rights of you kids are paramount. Words. Empty words. Holy Jesus, you just try to assert those rights today in a tribunal. It’s difficult enough as it is.

ANWAR FAWZI And not cheap.

JUDITH FAWZI No, not if you have to get a medical report. And now they’re trying to get rid of Statements altogether. Then you’ll have no rights at all. They’ll try to make out it’s in our interests, when it’s only in theirs. You know, all they do is play games with people’s lives – you kids are just little pawns in a gigantic game of chess.

MARGARET WILLIAMSON Sacrificial pawns, Judith. And for everyone else it’s “Snakes and Ladders”, with more snakes than ladders.

Sorry if this is a rant

But let me say a word here about Tribunals, all Tribunals.

There is a fiction – and it really is a fiction – that tribunals are not the same as courts. It is suggested that they are just informal proceedings with the law absent, lawyers superfluous and that they are independent. I am sorry to disillusion you. The Law is ever present. Statutes, Statutory Orders and the precedent of previous cases guide decision taking, although these can sometimes be total gobbledegook to the lay person. Witnesses present evidence, but need to have their arguments questioned in cross-examination. A paid lawyer, who is appointed by the Lord Chancellor, acts as chair of the panel. Members are appointed by the DfES. There are 175 such Tribunals throughout the country.

In the Prologue I referred to the Power Inquiry’s call “for a re-balancing of power between the Executive and Parliament, between Central and Local Government and between the Citizen and the State.” I have addressed this in broad terms suggesting that there is all the way still to go here, despite the Inquiry. (Revisit Post 15). Here I give you one precise illustration.

The scales are loaded against parents. Murderers, rapists, paedophiles are entitled to legal aid defence, but this is not the case with parents of children with special needs trying to do their best for their children. They have to pay for a lawyer if they want one. Furthermore, if they have to get medical reports, they have to pay for them too, and they are not cheap.

No, the answer is not to provide legal aid. In the present economic climate, in any economic climate, that will never happen. There could, I suppose, be a “pro bono” role for 3rd year students in the law departments of Universities, a useful learning experience for them – maybe better than studying Roman law – and much better than nothing for parents.

That, too, is not what I suggest here, although it might help with other Tribunals.

Much better to slay not one, but two sacred cows instead. Hence the abattoir.

First, go back to my first quote: “Statementing is a bureaucratic process under the control of Local Education Authorities (LEAs). It could be, and it should be a multidisciplinary one, but it isn’t.” Decision taking should be in the hands of those sensitive to individual need and not ruled by a political agenda to secure “outcomes”. (Revisit Post 3.)

Sacred Cow Number One: end the writing of Statements by civil servants.

Sacred Cow Number Two: scrap Special Educational Needs Tribunals altogether. With them, scrap all the paper-chasing, time consuming, money-wasting rigmarole that they involve.

In the words of the Power Inquiry, “rebalance the power between the Citizen and the State.” But don’t just say it. Do it. Currently the termites are winning every time. (Revisit Post 1.)

Appoint multi-disciplinary bodies, comprising retired head teachers, medics, physio’s, educational psychologists and one or two lay members to work off reports, and draw up Statements of need. A clerk could keep them right by the Law. Then, if parents do not go along with their decision, give them a personal hearing and pay for any evidence they want to provide. I am sorry there will be no “jobs for the boys or girls” – no jobs for lawyers or accountants. That should save some money for a start.

This is my freebie for any political party that wants to make it a Manifesto pledge for the next General Election. It must be worth at least 400,000 votes, and save some money as well. Come to think of it, if they take me up on it, they could make a contribution to the Death of a Nightingale Fund giving holidays in London to children with special needs to further show that they care.

Before you start to read this, do remind yourself what it’s all about.

Click the Post 1. – “We shall explore in some depth why one of the best laid plans has, at least for some, gone badly wrong and why some fine hopes may well have been dashed.”

Click Post 10 – “When, for example, I point to social reformers seeing special educational needs ‘simplistically … projecting what they felt in their gut they would want for themselves for everyone else’ I learnt this myself the hard way in the 1970′s. It is arrogant, egotistical or self indulgent take your pick.”

Click Post 3 – where I suggest the considering individual needs is much more important than planning “outcomes”.

Act Two, Scene 6

DAVID HARDING … Don’t think I don’t realise. It’s just that I’m expected to deliver outcomes as well. It’s not easy.

EILEEN WINTERTON Outcomes, I do hate that word. I’d ban it altogether. It’s so impersonal. Why don’t you use the good old English word ‘objective’? The word “outcomes” gives jargon a bad name. You have to focus on meeting individual needs if you want to get anywhere at all, and there’s no quick fix either.

“Yes, those who have a mandate to govern must do so. But they must be sensitive to individual need. They should certainly not see that, as I suspect some do, as bourgeois self indulgence. That is sick.”

So I ask you to consider here what the children with special educational needs themselves think about Inclusion.

Here I have a small confession to make. I have been guilty of plagiarism, but with mitigating circumstances.

I have already told you that I was the governor of a special school for children with special educational needs for well over ten years, many of them as its chair of governors. For much of that time it was threatened with closure. But it was not one of the 100 special schools actually closed, largely because of the parents’ continuing fight to keep it open. The pupils helped in this too.

Death of a Nightingale is not about that fight, but it draws on my experience of it.

In the course of it, the pupils wrote a letter to the Director of Education urging the Local Education Authority to keep their school open. I have drawn freely on that letter to write the letter that Philippa wrote to the Prime Minister.

Act One Scene 8

Tracy, Philippa, and Harry are talking amongst themselves in the Music Room.

TRACY There some more good news on the school grapevine. Susan’s got into Bristol to read History and David Wilson’s got into the Post Office.

PHILIPPA He can deliver my letter for me.

HARRY What letter?

PHILIPPA To the Prime Minister. Special wheel chair delivery to 10 Downing Street. It’ll make a good picture in your newspaper.

HARRY I wouldn’t waste my time. My dad’s written lots of letters all over the place. Never seemed to get anywhere at all.

PHILIPPA Well I’m writing to the Prime Minister. He said Education, Education, Education and I am taking his word for it

HARRY He could have said rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb so far as this school is concerned.

PHILIPPA That’s the point of my letter. I am telling him he should visit this school and meet us.

HARRY There’s no votes in it.

PHILIPPA There will be soon enough. Do you want to hear what I have written?

HARRY Yea, go on, tell us.

PHILIPPA

“Dear Mr. Prime Minister

I am writing to invite you to visit my school. I am writing to you personally because you should know what pupils like me think about where we should be taught. And you should see for yourself just how much we will lose if this school is closed. My parents told me this could still happen, even though all our parents said that they wanted it kept open.

My childhood was a happy one, but difficult at the same time. When you are in a wheel chair and all your friends have been walking, straight away it clicks you’re different.

I first went to a primary school but I was called “old wheelie bin” there and that was not very pleasant. Some friends of mine were called “spackers.” Then I came here to Brighouse. They gave me real enthusiasm for living. Brighouse does not take or give the easy option. It pushes everyone to the full and then pushes some more. They pushed me academically and physically even though I am in a wheel chair. I’ve competed three times in Great North Runs, and I went to the Athens Para Olympics with two of my friends. I won a Silver medal, and my friend a Gold.

And I am planning to get my GCSE’s and word processing qualifications. And I also play in the Tin Pan Ally Steel Drum Band. We have gigs every week and give a lot of pleasure to a lot of people and especially to ourselves.

Children like me don’t want to be social experiments. We have got one chance and the staff here know just how to make it a real one.

If you could just spare the time to come down to our school, and look into the eyes of the children and ask them where they want to be, I personally guarantee you won’t want us to go anywhere else.

I may not be a voter today. But I soon will be.

Yours sincerely

Philippa Jones,
Pupil Brighouse Special School
Westborough.”

Click Blog 7 – Let me remind you what I said there: “While it may be ‘right’ for children with special needs to go to a mainstream school, they are not necessarily ‘wronged’ if they are not. Human rights lawyers in particular please note.”

I hope that as you read these Posts, something else “clicks”.

Before I explain the question, I must first explain myself. You might otherwise be tempted to dismiss what I write here as rant. It is a little more than that.

If you read about me, you will see that I am a barrister, a member of the UK’s legal profession, but only on the basis that “once a barrister always a barrister. ” I have to confess to you that it is many years since I represented anyone, and I never represented all that many people anyway. I moved on. No-one can accuse me of being a termite. You will have to read some of my earlier Posts to see what I mean by that.

The Bar, however, has a tradition, and with all these Posts and with this one in particular, I adopt it. That tradition is to pass on to the younger generation the tricks of the trade, sorry, some accumulated wisdom and skills.

The Author’s Note

On the Northern Circuit I was privileged to have as Head of Chambers, and as my pupil master, the late C.N.Glidewell, CNG to everyone who knew him. He was a man with old fashioned integrity. He was also a master of advocacy – particularly good when he showed up the ineptitude of local planners. He also had style. All of this was somehow encapsulated in his choice of car – a Bristol – a prestigious saloon engineered with traditional British quality in its design. In all ways CNG was a cut above the ordinary.

Maybe that is where I first experienced the need for boxing gloves when dealing with bureaucrats. Mind you I am afraid that some lawyers, not all, only engage in shadow boxing, so you have to be careful in your choice. I am sorry if that offends, but it must be said.

Let me press on. Today I am not wearing a fusty old, out dated, legal wig. They don’t need them in the States. They should discard them in the UK other than on ceremonial occasions, and probably not even then. They are pretty on female heads, but socially very divisive. Sorry, that is a bit of rant.

Today, I write wearing the suit and tie of a retired company chairman and managing director, with a Rotary badge in my lapel.

I return to my question. Are you a lion or a gazelle? Death of a Nightingale explains that this question comes straight out of Africa. The answer has, however, to be provided here.

Act One Scene 3

Margaret Williamson, the head teacher, Emma Kirk, the music teacher, Joan Errington the English teacher, and Wendy Robinson, a non-teaching care assistant, talk in the staff room about staff training. They somehow find the time.

MARGARET WILLIAMSON Okay. Can we focus on motivation? We know kids have a lotof anger, a lot of aggression. And not just kids. What do we do with it? Do we harness it, or do we suppress it? Would that be a good topic?

EMMA KIRK Yes, it would. Can I give you a story to tell them? It will make a good starting point. It comes from a book I’ve been reading. The story comes out of Africa. “Every morning a gazelle wakes up. It knows that it must run faster than the fastest lion, or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows that it must run faster than the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle. When the sun comes up, you better start runnin’.”

MARGARET WILLIAMSON I’m afraid Emma, that begs the question – just where do you run to?

EMMA KIRK If you want to talk about motivation, Margaret, talk sport. Most folk will follow that. So where does Tiger Woods run? To the winning post. That man knows what it is to aspire – it’s not about dosh – no way, and not just to be the best golfer on the day. Tiger wants to be the best golfer ever – and a black. Wow. That’s where that man channels all his energy, and he has no fear of failure. He’s practised the word ‘failure’ right out of his vocabulary. If you’re afraid of failure you’ll win nuttin’. The dustbins are full of the hopes of those who in their bellies were dead scared of failing. They couldn’t zap their fears. Sisters, I tell you, if you cannot zap those gremlins right out of your system, you’ll win nuttin’ in life.

JOAN ERRINGTON Yes, you’re right about using sport. I heard Navratilova explain why so many good tennis players come out of Eastern Europe. And we produce scarcely any. They have belief and determination, and they don’t quit. That’s where you run.

EMMA KIRK I know another part of the trouble. It’s them folk that prattle on about the evils of capitalism and competition. Oh yes it is. That’s why we don’t win things. Why we have so few sporting heroes of our own. If we want to enjoy them, we have to import them. Then call the football team Chelsea. Them folk, the poor little lambs that have lost their way, baa baa baa. They don’t like competition. Poor little things. Tell that to the Chinese. Today their students are keeping our universities going. Why? To compete. Competition’s a part of life. Wanting to be somebody is part of real living. Earning and spending our dosh makes the world go round, now don’t it? Sure these things are not the be all and the end all, but those folk who moan on about these things are just running scared of life They expect the State to tie their bootlaces for them. That’s no good way to be. Now is it?

MARGARET WILLIAMSON I don’t entirely agree. Some people like life without the spills and they don’t mind missing out on the thrills. They don’t think life should be about winners and losers.

EMMA KIRK Okay, but don’t wish it on other folk. That is one of the things that life is about. If they don’t believe it is, and they’re teachers, they’re preparing kids for a world that don’t exist. You need a horizon. The sting of failure is a spur to glory. Sure you feel the sting, but you’re not running scared of it. If you don’t like the sting at all, well don’t look for the glory. Hey, that’s one reason why we celebrate so many victories in this school, isn’t it so? We compete. Our Para Olympian medallists for a start. Our Band….

JOAN ERRINGTON You’re right There’s real triumph when it comes out of adversity, especially if you have to suffer a little first It sets kids up for life. Mollycoddle them, wrap them up in cotton wool, and everyone else will run off with the medals. I think it was Helen Keller who said “Security is an illusion. Life is either a daring adventure or it is nothing at all.” She rose to a challenge didn’t she? Blind and deaf from early childhood.

EMMA KIRK Nannies should stay in the nursery, if you ask me. It ain’t no good pretending that life’s easy. The easy option is usually a dead end. For our kids it is.

MARGARET WILLIAMSON Well there are certainly no cheers for mediocrity. Great Britain wasn’t great just because of her Empire and the Maxim gun. Can I sum this up? Unless you find a mountain to climb, you’ll never ever find out what you’re really capable of. You’ll miss out on an awful lot For our kids those mountains are just a little bit higher, and we have to keep reminding them about the view from the top.

JOAN ERRINGTON Before we finish, Margaret, there’s one other thing we should talk about. It you’re thinking about motivation, you should also think about things that demotivate. You know the worst thing? And at Brighouse we can see this more clearly than most. It’s envy. Envy gets you nowhere, nowhere at all. Margaret, when you opened this discussion you mentioned anger and aggression. Envy sometimes turns that right in on itself. Think of Iago in Othello. The Bard saw it all.

EMMA KIRK The Bible got there long before that. The Tenth Commandment. Thou shalt not covet. No sin in owning Just sin in coveting.

MARGARET WILLIAMSON No sin in owning? How do you get your camel through the eye of a needle, Emma?

EMMA KIRK Those gates of Heaven are still a titchy bit open for those rolling in it. It’s not owning riches that’s the problem. It’s what you do with them. Money makes the world go round. I’ll tell you something. I know the Bible says you can’t serve God and Mammon. It doesn’t say it’s a sin to go shopping with it. Anyway, that’s not the point I’m making. You’ve got to admire what folk make of their lives when they make a success of it.

JOAN ERRINGTON Well our kids go along with that. It’s so much healthier to rejoice in someone else’s achievement than to envy it. And they do, they really do. And we have to encourage it all the time.

MARGARET WILLIAMSON Yes we do. It’s liberating for all of us. It’s our gift to the world to help people to see that. There is far too much envy about these days – and it’s usually the same lost sheep you were talking about. You’d think it was a crime to want to win something. And you’d think it was a sin to want to own a yacht. The great thing these days is that lots of people do, and not just millionaires. It what gets them going. Fly a plane, cure a sick animal, drive a McLaren, just have a dream. That’s why you’ll want to learn. The tragedy today is that not enough kids have a dream

WENDY ROBINSON A lot of our kids do. The young ones get them from the older ones. Good on them all. Any road, I got my dream. We love our van. We have smashing times.

MARGARET WILLIAMSON Exactly. Meanwhile our great government can’t make up its mind whether we are a part of one large sausage machine, or a lot of small sausage machines.

If the kids in El Sistema from the back streets of Venezuela can have a dream – scroll back to Post 17 – there is no good reason why kids here shouldn’t be encouraged to have one.

In that Post I said that I would talk here about the pursuit of excellence. Now, I add just this. There are degrees of excellence, and there are variations in mediocrity. There is no equality here. There can, if you think about it, be fairness.

This is my contribution to the rising generation, in the best tradition of the English Bar.

And the question – are you a lion or a gazelle? In this fast changing world, there isn’t any other realistic choice, is there? In the words of Emma Kirk, “You’d better start runnin’.”

____________________________________________________

This week marks the fifth anniversary of the death of my mother, Esther. I dedicated Death of a Nightingale to her memory. I think of her as I write this particular Post. She would have endorsed every word of it.

When you meet your friend on the roadside or in the market place,
let your spirit in you move your lips and direct your tongue.
Let the voice within your voice speak to the ear of his ear.
For his soul will keep the truth of your heart as the taste of the
wine is remembered
When the colour is forgotten and the vessel is no more.

The Prophet – Kahlil Gibran