In my last two posts I drifted away from Death of a Nightingale with my own musings about the charade we call Democracy and my practical suggestion for a better way of doing things.

I must now return to my play, and use my characters to say where all this is leading – to the issues the Parties prefer to avoid. Do you worry, as I do, why Western Capitalism seems so ill at ease, more than that, why it looks so sick? And why ours more than most?

What do YOU do if you are a passenger in a clapped out old banger, the driver keeps clashing the gears, doesn’t appear to know the difference between the accelerator and the brake, and you suspect you are on the wrong road anyway? YOU THINK.

I write to help you to do that, especially this post, as you will see as you read on.

In my book I explained that Special Educational Needs provided a vehicle for my journey. This is the journey. I shall complete it when I succeed in getting the play staged and publish this Blog at the same time – all of it is brain fodder – food for thought.

Let me remind you. In the first Act of the play the Head teacher of Brighouse School, Margaret Williamson, is persuaded by the Local Education Authority to argue to parents the case for the closure of her school. She sees this as an act of betrayal and, in a state of despair, she tries to take her own life. In the second Act Eileen Winterton, the chair of Governors, asks Joan Errington Margaret’s partner and the English teacher at the School to explain the nature of her despair.

There is then this short dialogue in the stage version:

JOAN ERRINGTON Yes, I think we’re getting there. If you want to know why poor Margaret tried to kill herself, don’t look just at her. And, don’t think it was all to do with the LEA either. That was literally the last straw, the straw that broke the camel’s back. You have to look at the world she lived in, as I know she saw it. She why she was so depressed, why she kept taking those goodnight pills all the time. Then you’ll begin to understand. You’ve got to dig deep. When people go as far as she went, you’ve got to dig deep to understand.

EILEEN WINTERTON I do see it now. Yes, it’s ironic isn’t it? Right at the very bottom, there are two dreams in Western Society, the Marxist dream and the Liberal dream, separately and together, both of them, the opium of the brainy classes. And why? Because they inhabit the world of “wouldn’t it be nice if.” Wouldn’t it be nice if only such as such were the case?

JOAN ERRINGTON And, of course, it very rarely is.

EILEEN WINTERTON Give a function to the State to make the world a better place, put a value on individual worth, yes, but allow for human frailty as well. They don’t do that. That’s where they both go badly wrong.

Generations have lived through, and suffered too much from the Age of Ideology. See where it has led, as people tried to give substance to their dreams, fought for them, died for them but, at the end of the day, found them, in so many cases, always round the next corner of their lives.

Equality? Harriet Harman drives a Bill through Parliament with that title to it, but have we ever been so aware of inequality in the UK as now when we hear of Bankers’ bonuses and Parliamentary perks? (Visit Post 5 to see the holes in Harriet’s bucket.)

Democracy? 35% of voters (22% of the electorate) elect 55% of the MPs but, worse than that, many are not voting for their party so much as voting against another party, and voting with their own personal agenda more than for any national agenda. Meanwhile, no one is really accountable for anything, and our rulers spend taxpayers’ money as though it was their own and they had just won the Roll-over Lottery.Another bucket with a holes in it.

Rights? Our legislators create them without realising that some people would be better off if they hadn’t; also without realising that one person’s right can be another person’s restriction. This will be news to some, especially those who do not realise that a “legal right” is often not a promise, but only a hope. Read Death of a Nightingale from cover to cover to understand all this.

Socialism? The Labour Party takes command of the controlling heights of the economy and nationalises the Banks. You would think that this would give them the command they always wanted. Remember Clause 4. But, no. They want to denationalise them just as soon as they can – and I believe them – and they cannot even use their control to stop the banks using bail-out money to pay huge bonuses, get them to provide credit for enterprises that need it or give a decent return on cash ISAs.This bucket has lost its bottom altogether.

Capitalism? The debace of Equitable Life and the continuing plight of its policy holders, Nick Leeson and the demise of Barings, the “Dot-com” bubble, Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi, the collapse of Enron and the Credit Crunch – and all in little more than one decade! Admit it – Something is very badly wrong with Capitalism – not least with its supervision. Capitalism certainly needs salesmen, but not so many of them selling money for a quick buck, rewarded for short term gain not long term profit. Too many lemmings! Too many bears too, and not enough bulls.Auditors should audit the truth into accounts and lies out, not the other way round. Computers should show up when traders are gambling with other people’s money not managing it or, worse still, gambling with money that isn’t there at all.It’s time to tweak capitalism and protect the value of our money and our savings. THE POUND HAS DROPPED. WHEN WILL THE PENNY?

Conservatism? In the credit crunch the Tories applaud the nationalisation of the banks and they have to acknowledge that the free market, self regulation and the “loose touch” contributed to the failure of the banking system to prevent toxic debt swamping the system. They have to acknowledge it, but have they taken it on board? Why don’t they throw Lord Ashworth overboard? My worry is that they still love our clapped out old banger.

Liberalism? In my experience Liberals just love to play charades, especially the charade of Democracy.The LibDems still seem to think that all you have to do to solve problems – like Special Educational Needs and Education generally – is to throw more money at them. How naïve can you get? Post 35 explains all. When will they realise that you cannot clean out the stables with a feather duster?

Karl Marx and Adam Smith must be rotating in their graves. Asquith and Jo Grimond must be making a fine speeches in theirs.

So how about an era without Communism, Fascism, Socialism, Conservatism and even Liberalism? Instead, how about an Age of Pragmatism? How about combining realism with idealism?

Here are 10 suggestions for some rules or guidelines

1. Nothing that is, or has been, must always be. (Post 1 – April 2009>older entries)
2. Sometimes we are all equal. More often we are all different.
3. Accept that there is a hierarchy of skills and talents, all have to be nurtured.
4. Promote excellence and spurn – sorry, wrong word – don’t be satisfied with mediocrity. (Post 17 )
5. Be sensitive to the differing needs of others, especially if you are contemplating strike action.
6. Fairness not Equality should provide the benchmark for human conduct.(Post 5) You can always aspire to be fair.
7. Respect is a two way street, especially in matters of faith.(Post 9)
8. People with power over others should be accountable for the way they exercise it and not, as now,be “Teflon-coated.”
9. Allow always for human frailty. It won’t go away. Ever. Accountants, in particular, please note, and acknowledge your own.
10. Above all, people and not money or dogma should control our destiny.And remember, “Give us this day our daily bread” is a prayer, not a demand!

A little less short terminism and a little more personal honesty would help too; they are, if you think about it, inter-related.

If these rules applied, for a start Education and Special Educational Needs would look quite different as would the NHS.

Two questions:

1. Just how pragmatic are YOU?

2. Which Party should win my vote?

You tell me.

(more…)

The public services, too.

As with my last post I write this without using the characters in Death of a Nightingale as intermediaries.

If you have read Death of a Nightingale or this Blog, or even if you have just browsed this website, you may think that I am antagonistic towards civil servants, especially mandarins represented by James Harrington in the play. He is a bit of a “wanker.”

But if that is the conclusion that you have drawn, you could not be more wrong. I have, over the years, met many who were dedicated, competent, conscientious and totally incorruptible. What I am antagonistic towards is the system within which they work.

The System is the problem

There is clearly something very badly wrong with it as there is with Parliament itself. (Visit post 48) The two are inter-connected at the navel.

Look at the public services. They are like a rudderless ship, overmanned, holed beneath the waterline, struggling to keep afloat in an ocean storm.

Consider the facts revealed in the recent study by Policy Exchange under the title: The Renewal of Government, a manifesto for whoever wins the election. The study compares the public sector with the private.

The public sector has better pay and pensions, almost total job security, much less redundancy but, hard to believe, in fact quite incredibly, it shows less improvement in productivity, many more strikes, more sickness and absenteeism and poor morale generally!

Click http://cli.gs/qX10vJ and put “morale” into its search engine. See where it leads you. You only need to give it five minutes.

It’s not a matter of money

I draw one stark conclusion from all this. You don’t solve problems by throwing money at them. You solve problems by managing them. Why do LibDems in particular always think it is just a matter of money? Why are we are so bad at dealing with these problems? Different question. Same answer.

Today, the world is very complex. It is not a place for the amateur however well intentioned. Yet, we have a system that allows amateurs, MPs - yes in today’s world they are amateurs – to be involved in day-to-day management decisions? Far too many of them are lawyers, PR consultants, journalists, and party political hacks, sorry, career politicians . And we repeat it in local government. The one thing they are all good at is talking in meetings. And they get plenty of practice.

It is a time consuming, money wasting, short-termist game, everyone pretending that this is democracy in action. As I have said, every con man needs a mug, and we are the mugs to allow this charade to continue.

Death of a Nightingale points this up

Death of a Nightingale uses the virtual reality of theatrical drama to provide just one illustration of the price we pay. Well-meaning amateurs, many without a clue as to the range of special needs that exist, simplistically thought there were savings to be made, or projected in their gut what they imagined they would want for themselves for everyone else. Both were wrong.

That is why they went on to close over one hundred special schools and shoehorn children with special needs out of a supportive environment of a special school into mainstream schools. We then pay billions of pounds for classroom assistants to help teachers look after them, in most cases bullied and excluded, yes excluded, in an inclusive environment. Certainly the policy was right for some, but certainly not right for others.

Not just in education

The same has happened with mental hospitals. These were closed to save money or because its patients should be looked after within the community. So what have we done? Filled the prisons with many of them – at£40k per annum a time, apart from the cost of the methadone. And now we are forced to build more prisons and cannot afford rehab centres! (Read Times 17 March 2010 on Drug Addiction).

Just what good is the legal right to something if you are worse off as a result and if others are worse off too? And it is always the most vulnerable.

I repeat. Management today should be left to the professionals , to the people who really know how to meet the needs of children with special needs, or people with serious mental health problems, or with health problems full stop. Managers without that knowhow cannot easily be good managers.Too many managers and decision takers lack this professional knowhow. And they keep their jobs.

It does not need to be this way. I suspect that this is not the European way which instinctively we criticise, but shouldn’t. There they train a political elite to govern.

If special education and SEN help you to understand the problem, it can also help you to see a solution to it.

Power up your imagination

I am going to invite you to power up your imagination. So please stay with this to the end.

First, imagine that the Department for Children, Schools and Families in London was scaled down in size dramatically butwith Higher and Further Education restored to it from Lord Mandelson’s little empire. It should never have been taken away.

No more target setting for a start to get bums on seats in our Universities – silly then, even more silly now – whether they should be there or not. No more target setting to get children with special needs into mainstream schools whether it is best for them or not.

Now, while you are about it, abolish OFSTED. You’ll see it won’t be needed. With me so far?

Next, if you are ready, get rid of Local Authority control over schools – and the whole panjandrum of Inclusion as well. You will soon see that they are surplus to requirements too.

Saved a bit of money already? And helped to reduce the country’s black hole of debt?

Next, instead of all of that, get local authorities to appoint three regional education authorities staffed with highly skilled educational practitioners, one for education, one for higher and further education and one for special educational needs. The last one would include some medical and psychology practitioners as well. The template for this already exists. It is there with regional airport authorities and with something like Tyne and Wear Museums.http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/about/ourmission (Visit Post 41) It also worked with the regional development authorities like the Tyne & Wear Development Authority.

What I am urging you to imagine really does work, and works well.

Now, give these authorities a simple remit. Meet the varied educational needs of pupils and students in their region, academic and vocational, and promote excellence.

I think it was Yevtushenko who wrote “Let every man be great, including the man who makes my galoshes.”

They would, of course, need to be centrally resourced to enable them to fund schools and Universities and to check them out to make sure that they were fulfilling their remit and working within their budgets. They would be accountable to the local authorities that set them up and report to the DFES, putting their reports on the NET.

One final thing. Hiring and firing and pay bargaining should replicate that in the private sector. It works

In the context of all of that schools and Universities and their boards of governors would be given their individual remits and their budgets, and they would be required to work within them, again with the same disciplines that operate in the private sector.

Accountablity at the core

“ACCOUNTABILITY” should be at the core of this in the same way that “BLACKPOOL” is at the core of Blackpool Rock. It is the one thing that distinguishes democracy from autocracy – or not, as the case may be!

All of this would be an enormous culture shock, but deadwood would go, and success would be rewarded. People would start to enjoy their work. Oh yes, it might save a bit of money too.

Heralding the Age of Pragmatism

What would all this mean? I shall explain in my next post. Essentially, it would herald an end of the Age of well-intentioned Ideology. It would see in the birth of a new Age, the Age of Pragmatism.

It might work! And we very badly need it to.

Please copy and paste http://cli.gs/nmA1a6 to anyone you think will be interested.