Agree with most of that.

Again – I love the fact that the Potter books got people reading. And I've read a couple of them myself and enjoyed them. They''re a very easy read – and that does take skill.

But they're not great literature, any more than Enid Blyton's schoolgirl books (also great fun) were great literature.

Pratchett is way, way beyond that. I do also think that Sir TP does suffer from genre snobbery – the same thing can be said of crime fiction, although that's produced the likes of Raymond Chandler, whose work is literature too. The literary establishment in this country, like any other form of the establishment, can be incredibly staid. Personally, I think that much of what TP has produced is far better than much of what passes for English 'literary fiction' in recent years (some of which I have had to read for review purposes and little of which strikes me as much cop).

My one slight disagreement would be to say that, that in that sense, TP is far, far better known, and has a far, far wider audience than many of those authors, though. IIRC, he's one of the best-selling English authors of all time.

Okay, so whether everyone who reads his books 'gets' them as satire is a different question, but it's part of his genius that they can be read simply as comic fantasy – or as something more, which makes them particularly inclusive.

I own up to not having read any of Pratchett's books but I have met the man and a very good friend of mine is a business associate and also executor to his will.

Pratchett is very much his own man, the main reason he chose Sky over the BBC for televising his books is Sky never demanded artistic control. Bernard (my mate) was at Pratchett's house once when Spielberg telephoned him regarding the potential of filming a book. Pratchett declined what would have been a very lucrative offer because he would not cede artistic control. When Spielberg told him he could be a very wealthy man Pratchett replied: "I'm already very wealthy Mr Spielberg, I have far more money than I could hope to spend in my lifetime, what would I do with any more?".

Like him or not, Gove is arguably the most influential Tory politician of this generation. The fact that he currently occupies one of the less fashionable ministerial offices in education shouldn't provide any comfort. Indeed, I think it serves to highlight where the Tory Party (or, I should say, its benefactors) thinks the real emphasis is in terms of attacking public sector spending and, more importantly, re-tooling the national indoctrination programme. I mean, given the national disgrace that the British press amounts to it's the easiest thing in the world to drive through welfare cuts. Just sprinkle a few dozen half-truths or outright fabrications about such-and-such-a-body claiming dole whilst cruising the streets in a new Ferrari and Voila! - a mandate appears.

But education, like the NHS, is an altogether harder proposition. Which is precisely the reason Gove, a man both financed and supported by, the most radical elements of the American Neo-conservative movement - including Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle etc. has been given the job. It's typical political sleight-of-hand (something we fall for every time). Work the electorate into a creamy lather over welfare whilst stealthily reaching behind your back to filch the contents of your wallet and make all manner of questionable changes. Further spending cuts are a certainty and given the company Gove keeps so is wholesale privatization. After all, Rumsfeld & Cheney presided over the biggest privatization bonanza in history with the US armed forces, the Pentagon, CIA etc.

Spending cuts and privatization are bad enough. But after my experiences in teaching I'm more worried about his plans to not just continue where his predecessors left off in undercutting what educational benefit remains in the national curriculum but accelerating the process.

I never fail to be amazed at people's unlimited willingness to ascribe anything other than conscious intent to the actions of politicians despite affording, say, ethnic minorities, benefit claimants etc. no such free latitude.

For weeks the media has been prattling on about how "stupid" Gove's reforms are. How increasing the number of exams, force-feeding every child the plays of Shakespeare (!), quantifying every moment of school time in order to derive endless streams of meaningless league tables which rank everything up to the cleanliness of the loos will further "dumb down" education. Well, D'uh!

Depending on which media narrative you subscribe to Gove is either a "visionary" (the BBC especially loves to introduce the word "visionary") whose reforms will deliver unto us a new Athenian generation or a blundering yet fundamentally honest fool who will leave Britain further behind the burgeoning Asian tigers.

Completely missing from both the media and the public's critique is the possibility of conscious intent. Gove drafts the kinds of policy which we already know leads to declining standards ergo Gove intended to attack standards.

Given that today's predominantly service-sector economy no longer necessitates the abundance of highly-skilled (and relatively highly paid) craftsmen Britain needed fifty years ago is this such an impossible suggestion?

Gove's policies form the closing parenthesis to the Tories' initial education target - university education. At the time it was thought too many people were applying for university - especially as the number of highly skilled jobs in Britain has been diminishing for years. It is a fact that educated employees are more likely to demand higher wages, leave without notice, exercise their rights under the law etc. and Big Business (which, pulls the Tory strings) wants no part of that.

Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad if we were only returning to education as it was, say, fifty years ago which at least attempted to counterbalance academic with vocational. Alas it seems the future is one in which the Marmadukes and Ruperts of this world will have their pick of any number of intellectually stimulating and challenging educational opportunities whilst the rest of us are forced to eat cake - and then have our access to the NHS withdrawn for unhealthy living.

The conservatives have stitched us up royally. And, sans one or two voices of sanity and reason, they've achieved their no-less radical aims than those of the Thatcher government sustaining little more than a few cuts and bruises. Meanwhile the Guardianistas and such like have pretty much mirrored the hopelessly ineffective American liberal class, which also failed to recognise that the business lobby, after taking a brief kicking during the 60s and 70s, has re-invented itself in a leaner and far, far meaner aspect and is currently playing for every last marble on the table.

In response to Mugwump's epic:

1. It looks like we're about to get, pre-election, a huge privatisation - part of the government's stake in Lloyds Bank. Bigger privatisation than British Gas which the Tories feel won them an election in the past.

2. Gove - love him or hate him he's probably the most (nay, only) competent Tory minister at present.

3. I think his education programme is a mixed blessing:

a. A return to something like the old system will give bright kids from disadvantaged backgrounds more opportunity. Even Diane Abbot agreed on that - Gove apparently saying "I love you to her" when she intejected in the Commons.
b. I have long argued that we should fully fund the intelligent at university. Hopefully, this is a step towards that and to moving back towards a world class universtity system. The current state of affairs is unsustainable on so many levels and must be turned around quickly.
c. Slightly against what I have said, we need to be careful to keep the up the aspirations of the non intellectually-elite pupils. The one good thing about the system of recent years has been that more kids are engaged with the idea of aspiring to get on and have a go. They are being let down though by becoming highly indebted for no real future reward.

I'm sure I could conduct a more recent poll of teenaged about Goves comments and get a more mature response.

I'd suggest privatisation was no greater vote-winner than lucking-out with oil in the North Sea, or the post-Wilson fallout which destroyed the Labour Party. But then, Tories have never allowed the truth to overshadow self-spun myths of glorious self-determination. In any case, the days when Tory Prime Ministers set the agenda for public-sector sell-offs are now a dim ember in memory. I mean, Cameron may currently possess the freedom to pick which public assets will be sold for a fraction of their true worth - but, unlike Thatcher, he may not choose to refrain altogether. That hard won freedom now belongs to a handful of giant investment banks, the United States Federal Reserve etc. - and they won't exercise such any time soon.



"Competent" ministers aren't courted by the elite group of the Republican Party, insanely rich industrialists, media barons etc. The truth is Gove is an ambitious, talented and highly resourceful politician who achieves results - for the class he represents.



Much as a mercifully swift death beneath the headsman's axe was a mixed blessing to those sentenced to excruciating torture under the Inquisition.

Whilst Gove's reforms are unquestionably bad for all but the affluent, let's not pretend things were ever that good to begin with.

State-regulated eduction confuses even the brightest of pupils. It disgorges vast amounts of incoherent information which kids must memorise in order for them to not be judged failures. Aside from testing it is very similar to TV in that it fills up a child's free time with overwhelming content forgotten in the same week.

It teaches kids to accept their class affiliation without question. It strips them of their individuality and leaves them not just emotionally but intellectually dependent. It teaches children a kind of self-confidence that requires constant confirmation by experts and discourages them from challenging authority figures (an act which is necessary to any functioning democracy). Lastly, it teaches them to acquiesce within an environment where you are constantly supervised and there is no opportunity to hide.

Pinning the blame on "bad teachers" is a cynical but nonetheless effective means of diverting attention from the fact that compulsory state education was never meant to truly educate. It was created to tackle the first great problem posed by the Industrial Revolution - encouraging vast numbers of people living agrarian lifestyles to take jobs they didn't want in the cotton mills, metalworks, mines etc. Life in the country was hard - but it was unimaginably more enjoyable than the hazardous mind-crushing "wage slavery" in filthy overcrowded cities. Worker revolts were commonplace and many people simply quit and went home.

The solution was found by Prussian sociologists who discovered that it was possible to create a largely docile, complaisant workforce from young by extending childhood into the teens (a period then labeled "adolescence") and stunting emotional development. This could only be achieved by forcibly separating kids from the traditional (and vastly more beneficial) teaching apparatus then provided by the family and placing them into a rigidly controlled and monitored authoritarian environment with continuous assessment.

Well over a century later little has changed.

Anyway, seems that student debt will be privatised - but to do so will require upping the interest rates the poor buggers are paying. Nothing like taxing the strivers is there?

Gove considering leting schools run for profit It now looks like the prat is seriously considering allowing hedge funds and vulture capitalists to take over or open schools. So we are basically comoditising our children's education. As each day goes by, I despair if we will ever get to the straw that broke the camel's back. I'm frankly amazed that the British public now seem to have become so emasculated that they blindly follow the Judas lamb onto the slaughterman's knife

Gove considering leting schools run for profit It now looks like the prat is seriously considering allowing hedge funds and vulture capitalists to take over or open schools. So we are basically comoditising our children's education. As each day goes by, I despair if we will ever get to the straw that broke the camel's back. I'm frankly amazed that the British public now seem to have become so emasculated that they blindly follow the Judas lamb onto the slaughterman's knife

cod'ead wrote:Gove considering leting schools run for profit It now looks like the prat is seriously considering allowing hedge funds and vulture capitalists to take over or open schools. So we are basically comoditising our children's education. As each day goes by, I despair if we will ever get to the straw that broke the camel's back. I'm frankly amazed that the British public now seem to have become so emasculated that they blindly follow the Judas lamb onto the slaughterman's knife It will improve education standards by introducing competition and will mean it doesn't soak-up tons of taxpayer's money. You know, like it did on the railways and water provision.

cod'ead wrote:Gove considering leting schools run for profit It now looks like the prat is seriously considering allowing hedge funds and vulture capitalists to take over or open schools. So we are basically comoditising our children's education. As each day goes by, I despair if we will ever get to the straw that broke the camel's back. I'm frankly amazed that the British public now seem to have become so emasculated that they blindly follow the Judas lamb onto the slaughterman's knife It will improve education standards by introducing competition and will mean it doesn't soak-up tons of taxpayer's money. You know, like it did on the railways and water provision.

I did wonder yesterday if this business of MPs being "unable" to reject the recommended pay rise would actually be that. While we're all taking one for the team, they aren't joining us.