Michael Gove, the new Education Secretary, announced his plan today to invite all primary and secondary schools in England to become academies. The academy programme was launched under New Labour in 2000, overcoming serious opposition from the left wing of the party – but they have thrived and are now considered to be a huge success - although not everyone agrees. The new academies would no longer be under local authority control and they would have greater freedom over the curriculum, admissions policies and teachers’ pay. This all sounds laudable but the notion that schools could introduce their own elements into the curriculum is both fraught with peril and open to potential abuse. For example, in the same year that he published Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) advocated the setting up of a number of special academies – that perhaps might not meet with Michael Gove’s expectations today. Continue reading

The general election is tomorrow but an incredible 38% of us are still deciding for whom to vote. The economy is shattered and we’re fighting two unpopular wars but many people are more preoccupied with the expenses scandal, Bigotgate and the general inter-party bickering. A few choice pieces of political scatology may help to focus the mind by reminding us that bad behaviour is nothing new. Remember - only the Lava-Tory Party can turn floating voters into voting floaters. Continue reading

The dust has begun to settle after the Eyjafjallajökull eruption in Iceland and recriminations are flying around instead – most notably from the airlines and the insurance industries. But before this descends into a tedious financial dispute, in which Iceland is largely forgotten, it is worth briefly considering the history of Anglo-Icelandic relations over the past 70 years because in this context it is apparent that Iceland has played an absolute blinder. Continue reading

At this time of year, the thoughts of both practicing Christians and salivating Chocoholics turn to Easter. Never mind the fact that the Catholic Church is buried up to its neck in filth, corruption, hypocrisy and vice, millions of people across the world are contemplating what Easter means to them and some are considering what Easter must have meant to Jesus. With this in mind, it might be instructive to think about what actually happened to Christ on the cross. It may be remembered that the Roman soldiers thrust a vinegary sponge on a stick at Jesus’ face. Continue reading

It is Gordon Brown’s turn today to face the Chilcot Inquiry. If the committee does its job properly, there should be nowhere for him to hide – except through obfuscation and denial. The fact that it is being broadcast live will only compound Brown’s sense of being intensely scrutinised. However, the Scottish history so beloved of Brown (he holds a PhD in history from Edinburgh University) offers a neat if surprising solution for his discomfort. Continue reading

Silvio Berlusconi has bought a bed that once belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte. This public act of narcissism is hardly surprising – Berlusconi has previous form, comparing himself to both Napoleon and Christ in 2006. Italy itself, of course, is divided between those who adore him and those who find him exquisitely embarrassing. The latter have long been aware of his Napoleonic fixation, even fearing that it could end somewhere quite sinister. 100,000 left-wingers took to the streets of Rome in 2002, amid rumours that what Berlusconi ultimately wanted was a dictatorship. In the vanguard of this protest march was a vast effigy of Berlusconi, characterised as Boney himself. Continue reading

Recent news that the British supermarket chain, Waitrose, is now stocking cashmere lavatory paper has got the world in a twitter. It should be pointed out, however, that no cashmere fibres are included in the paper, but that the paper is covered in an oil that is extracted from the hairs of the cashmere goat. For luxury arse-wiping is nothing new. In the 16th century, Francois Rabelais described how the giant Gargantua carried out “long and curious experiments” by which he “invented a method of wiping.. [an] arse which is the most lordly, the most excellent, and the most convenient that ever was seen.” Continue reading

Chilcot looked away, beating a pen against his teeth, and the next time Tony looked at him he was on his feet scanning the Inquiry for a victim. The question of at what stage Britain had promised America they would support military action against Iraq was now going to have to be answered. It was Tony who was going to have to answer it, he knew it, and he was right. Continue reading

Much lamenting across Britain with the news that Cadbury (who has been making and selling chocolate since 1824) is to be taken over by the American Kraft Foods, the second largest food and drinks company on the planet. All very sad, of course, and one must worry whether the takeover will lead to job losses but it is worth considering whether Britain might just not be better off without chocolate. Obesity concerns aside, it is a dangerous commodity. Take, for instance, Horace Walpole's account of the death of King George II in 1760. Continue reading

The Conservatives have just unveiled their new education policy promising better teachers and a shiny future for our schools. However, in the past, it has not just been the education that has been in need of reform. The facilities themselves were in urgent need of an overhaul. I trust the Tories will take note. Continue reading

The unfolding tragedy of Haiti’s earthquake should hardly be taken lightly. It is certainly not something to make religious capital out of as the right-wing televangelist nutjob Pat Robertson saw fit to do when he suggested that the earthquake was a divine punishment for the nation’s founders making a ‘pact with the Devil’ to liberate themselves from the French slave owners in 1791. Continue reading

Britain continues to freeze and shudder under the longest cold snap in thirty years. Elderly pensioners have been forced to start burning cheap second-hand books in a bizarre imitation of Ray Bradbury’s Farenheit 451. This, of course, is accompanied by the usual wintery gripes about how the councils have failed to grit the roads properly and countered by accusations of how we have lost the old Blitz spirit. Sitting indoors, however, I can’t help thinking how much worse it could be. Continue reading

British supermarkets have been advised to give more precise information about food products from the West Bank. Previously food was simply labelled ‘Produce of the West Bank’, but DEFRA guidelines recommending two choices – ‘Israeli settlement produce’ or ‘Palestinian produce’. In any event, this is hardly the first time that exports from the Holy Land have caused trouble for their immediate neighbours. In the first Book of Samuel the problem is much more severe than incorrectly labelled dates or olives and invokes the wrath of God. The Philistines, the westerly neighbours of the Israelites, ran off with the Ark of the Covenant and put it in the house of Dagon in the city of Ashdod. Continue reading

Alistair Darling’s Pre-Budget Report perfectly captured the air of desperation swirling around the government. With the general election looming, it was no surprise that Darling decided to throw a populist bone to the masses, in the shape of a 50% tax on bankers. Politically astute though this may prove to be, one can’t help thinking that Darling was simply responding to massive pressure from sites such as 38 Degrees – rather than coming up with the policy through his own initiative. How different the state of our economy might be if the Treasury was prepared to think outside of the box. For all New Labour’s talk of blue sky thinking, not one of Gordon Brown’s apparatchiks has the vision of someone like the Emperor Vespasian (9-79 CE) who, when the public finances were tight, decided to impose a tax on all the urine collected in Rome. Continue reading

My friend Lucy Cooke, aka the Amphibian Avenger, is on a mercy mission in South America to combat the deadly Chytrid fungus that threatens the very survival of the world’s frogs and toads. Continue reading

So the Swiss have voted in a referendum to ban the further construction of minarets. This is just the latest sorry chapter in the story of Islamic-Christian relations that stretches back to beyond the Crusades. The Swiss Minaret issue, however, is peculiarly unhelpful, showing a lack of understanding bordering on the culturally insulting and one that is certainly unlikely to come to any good. Continue reading

A video has come to light allegedly showing Marilyn Monroe smoking marijuana. As this blog has shown, drugs and celebrities do not mix well, especially when bathrooms are involved... but to me it was seem the more remarkable of evidence were found that Marilyn did not smoke marijuana. What does need more investigation, however, are the repeated allegations that Marilyn did not die of an overdose but that she was murdered by the insertion of an enema laced with barbiturates. Continue reading

The recent news that British sailors captured and then released by Iran has only fuelled speculation about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s real intentions. Nuclear brinkmanship, after all, carries the risk of going off in everybody’s faces. With this in mind, perhaps those concerned for Western security should take a leaf out of the history books. It is worth casting our minds back to the eighteenth century Whig politician, Charles James Fox (1749-1806), who wrote so eloquently about how the Ancient Greeks, when threatened by a military aggressor, went off in the faces of Ahmadinnerjacket’s ancestors, the Persians… Continue reading

The fascinating revelation that the call girl and sex-blogger Belle de Jour turns out to be a 33-year-old American academic called Dr Brooke Magnanti, with a PhD in epidemiology and forensic science, puts me in mind of an old story about another foreign prostitute who used science and her native wit to hoodwink her customers... Continue reading