Week 27 2013

Tendring Topics……..on line

‘The King was in his counting house, counting out his money’

            These days, of course, it wouldn’t be the king but the Chancellor of the Exchequer.   For me, Chancellor George Osborne lost all credibility and respect when, at the same time as introducing an austerity programme that penalised the poor and disadvantaged, he reduced the liability for income tax of the seriously wealthy; those with a taxable income in excess of £150,000 a year!   Quite apart from the flagrant injustice of penalising the poor and rewarding the rich, I find it incredible that any Chancellor of a country with a serious deficit problem should deliberately, and despite widespread protest, cut off a source of revenue. That the source consisted of very wealthy people who would barely notice the loss compounds the irresponsibility of the action.

             The Chancellor expects to be credited with ‘helping the poor’ when he raises the threshold of liability for income tax, thus ‘taking thousands of low-paid workers out of the income tax system altogether’. It isn’t only the poor who are helped.  Raising the tax liability threshold benefits all income tax payers, including the very wealthiest.  What’s more, being ‘taken out of the income tax system altogether’ automatically makes those affected into second class citizens, patronised by ‘we tax-payers who have to support a nation full of slackers and scroungers!

            Last week’s financial statement continued the tradition that the Chancellor and his colleagues have established.  Can they possibly really believe that the poor are to blame for their poverty and that that there is work in plenty available for those who genuinely seek it?  Extending to seven days the time that elapses before an unemployed person can sign on to claim job-seekers’ allowance suggests that they do.  Unemployed and penniless people and their families still need to eat, pay the rent, and buy other necessities during those seven days.  How else can those without savings do so without resorting to the ‘help’ of a loan-shark or one of those pay-day loans that are so deceptively easy to obtain and so very, very difficult to pay off.

            It isn’t likely that very many people will criticise the decision to deny the winter fuel allowance to elderly Brits. living in countries enjoying milder winters than those in the UK. It hadn’t even occurred to me that those who choose to live permanently overseas had been receiving it!  The countries affected are residents in European Union countries bordering on the Mediterranean, including France but excluding Italy.   At first glance that seems ridiculous. Surely winters in, for instance, Calais and Rouen must more closely resemble those in Britain than do winters in Naples or Palermo?

            Probably so – but the decision is made by a comparison between the average winter temperature in south-west England and the average winter temperature throughout the country concerned.   Italy’s average winter temperature is brought down by the permanently snow-capped Italian Alps and by the peaks of the Apennines extending down ‘the spine’ of Italy. I doubt if many, if any, ex-pats live among those peaks…………… but rules are rules!

            I really don’t understand why the Chancellor is so reluctant to use income tax to make winter fuel allowance and other benefits fairer, and yield revenue to narrow that deficit much more easily and painlessly than anything that he has done so far.  The state retirement pension is subject to income tax.  I can see no valid reason why all benefits (in fact, all sources of income) shouldn’t be similarly taxed.

            The only conclusion that I can reach is that the Chancellor’s political outlook, and that of his colleagues sees something morally wrong  in the idea that we should be taxed in accordance with our ability to pay.   A couple of pence in the pound on VAT or customs duty may lose a few votes, but it is tolerable because ‘the rich man in his castle’ and ‘the poor man at his gate’ pay exactly the same amount.  That clearly is the government’s idea of us ‘all being in this together’.

            A tax for rich and poor alike based proportionately on ability to pay?  Unthinkable – that’s the road to red revolution and the end of civilisation for ‘people like us’ (with a Rolls in the garage, a yacht in the marina, and a second home in Majorca).

            Mrs Thatcher must have had much the same idea when she replaced the rating system for the local financing of local government by the Poll Tax.   Rate demands had, admittedly very imperfectly, reflected the wealth or poverty of the householder.   The poll tax was the same for us all, the millionaire, the slum dweller and the rural cottager.  A late 14^th century version of the Poll Tax triggered the Peasants’ Revolt.  The late 20^th century version triggered revolt against Mrs Thatcher and her government and led to her eventual downfall at the hands of her own supporters. I think it unlikely that I shall still be around to see the eventual consequences in the 21^st century, of robbing the poor to make the wealthy even richer.

Clacton County High School

          My two sons were both pupils at Clacton County High School in the late 1960s and early ‘70s.  Both did very well there and I have always followed the progress of the school with a warm interest.

            I was very pleased therefore to read in the Clacton Gazette that the CCHS is in the top twenty percent of schools for raising pupils’ educational standards from admission at 11 to completing their GCSE examinations at 16.   Sue Williamson, chief executive of the Secondary School Admission Test education group, is reported as saying ‘Clacton County High School should be congratulated for their stunning performance in adding value to their students’ achievements.  It is one of the best schools in the country in outperforming expectations for their pupils and improving their future prospects.  There is plenty that other schools could learn from their success’.

            So far, so good.  It isn’t quite the whole story though.   On a back page of the same Gazette are to be found tables showing the percentage of pupils from each school and educational  establishment in Colchester and the Tendring District who went on to University or other Higher Education Institution.  These give a rather different picture.   Out of 110 school leavers from Clacton County High School 44 percent went on to Higher Education Institutions but only 6 percent went to the top third of these (that is, to a good university).  Not a single pupil from any school or other institution within the Tendring District gained admission to either Oxford or Cambridge Universities.  Things have been very different in the not-too-distant past.

  Peter Hall B.A.(Cantab) aged 21, on his graduation day. Selwyn College Chapel is in the background.  He was subsequently made an M.A.     

My elder son left Clacton County High School in 1970 at the age of 17, having sat and passed his ‘A’ level exams with outstanding results,. He had been  accepted by Selwyn College, Cambridge to begin his life there as an undergraduate from September 1971. He would then be just 18.  He spent his ‘gap year’ working in the store room of the Eastern Electricity Board HQ in Clacton, learning something of the ‘real world’ of work before he began his studies.  In 1971 he was one of  at least four CCHS sixth formers who became students at Cambridge University, all of whom graduated with honours.  Those four I knew about personally.  There may well have been others whom I didn’t know who started at either Oxford of Cambridge that same year.

       I don’t believe that young men and women of Clacton at the end of the 1960s were cleverer than those of the first decade of the 21^st century.  While it is possible that they were prepared to work and study harder (there certainly weren’t the distractions then that there are today) I think that their expectations and those of their teachers were higher, and that their teachers were more inspiring – and perhaps more skilled.

            Clacton County High School has proved itself brilliant at instilling a basic education into what may sometimes have been unpromising and perhaps resistant human material.  I believe though that the low percentage of pupils gaining admission to the best Universities – and none at all to Oxford and Cambridge – demonstrates that the school is failing its more gifted and hard-working pupils.   

           

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Week 4.09

Tendring Topics……..on Line

Too close for comfort!

Since I have had my mobility scooter (my ‘iron horse’) I have become more anxious about the possibility of being mugged and robbed than I once was. This is probably partly due to my age and consequent loss of physical strength, but also I think, because, seated on the scooter, I feel particularly vulnerable. I have never yet, for instance, been out on it after dark
Me, on my 'iron horse' outside my bungalow in Dudley Road during the summer. I have recently had a canopy fitted which should make me a little less vulnerable to muggers as well as to the weather.

However, although some reported muggings have taken place in the vicinity of my home, the most common time for such an attack tends to be after midnight, when the victim is on his way home from a nightclub or somewhere similar. That is not, and never has been, my scene.

That is something that couldn’t be said though about a mugging and knifing, that took place on Tuesday of last week (13th Jan.). A 47 year old man was attacked by three muggers who took from him his mobile phone and a quantity of beer, presumably in cans. They left him with a knife wound in his hand that needed hospital treatment. It is true that it didn’t take place in the hours of daylight. It was in the early evening though at about 7.15 p.m., just the time that I might venture out if there were to be some evening event that I particularly wanted to attend.

What’s more, it took place in Clacton’s Key Road within a few yards of its junction with Old Road. It’s only a few hundred yards from my home and I pass it at least twice every Sunday on my way to and from the Quaker Meeting House and on the fairly frequent occasions that I visit the computer shop, a local pharmacy or other shops in the area.

It may be that this wasn’t just a random attack by three yobs on someone who appeared to be on his own and vulnerable. Perhaps the assailants knew their victim and had some other motive than robbery for their assault. That thought would make the rest of us feel a little more secure.

However, I think that for the present I’ll stick to my resolution not to venture out after dark except, of course, as a passenger in a friend or relative’s car.
Key Road's junction with Clacton's Old Road, where the attack took place. I learn 'from a usually reliable source' (as they say!) that this is a spot where negotiations for the sale of drugs sometimes takes place. Perhaps then, the attack wasn't quite as random and purposeless as it had appeared to be.

‘Education, Education, Education!’

Education, Education, Education were claimed to be Tony Blair’s top three objectives when New Labour first took office over ten years ago. On a visit to Moscow he even managed to make the point in a soap opera on Russian tv!

I certainly wouldn’t claim that his subsequent educational policies have proved to be a dismal failure. The prowess of my three grandchildren, all three of whom have graduated during the past decade, clearly indicate otherwise. I am quite sure that it has produced a great many notable successes. There have been some sad disappointments though, well to the fore among them being Clacton’s Bishops Park College, at the ceremonial opening of which Tony Blair himself attended as a VIP guest just a few years ago.

Of the 111 pupils from this school eligible to take the GCSE examination last year only 52 percent managed to get five or more GCSE grades at or above ‘G’ level and only 8 percent managed to get these grades in five subjects including English and Mathematics. ‘G’ level, by the way, indicates a bare ‘pass’. The only other grade is ‘F’ for Failure which I am quite sure examiners are reluctant to award.. This was the lowest score of any of the hundred Essex Schools recently surveyed.

Compare this with Clacton County High School whose pass rate was 96 percent and 45 percent respectively and Tendring Technology College with a pass rate of 94 percent and 49 percent. The very best? Chelmsford County High School for Girls, Colchester County High School for Girls, and Colchester Royal Grammar School, all three with 100 percent passes in both categories.

A rather closer look at the league table reveals that 24.3 percent (almost a quarter) of Bishops Park College pupils had ‘special educational needs’ and 23.7 percent (again not far short of a quarter) of its pupils were ‘persistently absent’ from school. These figures are much, much higher than those for any other of the schools listed. It is surely obvious that Bishops Park College’s problem is not really ‘educational’ at all but ‘social’. Children need to have superhuman determination and potential to lift themselves out of an environment in which ‘book learning’ is regarded with contempt.

Mr Nick Pavitt, the head teacher who has done a very creditable job in lifting Colbayns High School out of failure and now has the responsibility for Bishops Park, claims that the school ‘is on the road to recovery’. I hope that it is, but fear it will be an uphill path, because it seems clear to me that the real problems lie not in the school but in the homes of some of the pupils.

In the meantime I can well understand the motives of those local parents who are spending their last penny in educating their children at home rather than send them to Bishops Park College, the only local secondary school in which they have been offered places. I’m only thankful that I was never called upon to make such a decision about my own sons’ education.

Our Wind-farm

Those old enough to remember the days of World War II will recall that the standard reply at the time to complaints of delays and inefficiency was; ‘Don’t you know there’s a war on?’ More recently it used to be, ‘Well, it’s the weather has held us up’ or ‘Our suppliers have let us down’ or ‘It’s them EU regulations, you know’. Now though there’s an all-purpose excuse that is almost as good as ‘the war’; ‘Blame it on the Credit Crunch’. That covers just about anything.

It is nice to know though that there’s one important enterprise in our area that needs no excuses. The Danish Dong Organisation (I wish that they’d change their name!) gave us the time-table for the installation and commissioning of the 48 wind turbines that they are erecting on the Gunfleet Sands almost directly south of Clacton pier, well over a year ago; and they have stuck to it. They are currently driving the monopiles that support each turbine into the seabed. Seventeen of the forty-eight are already in place and they have completed their off-shore sub-station. They are confident that the wind-farm will be completed and in operation before the end of the year.

The construction has brought a little unexpected prosperity to Brightlingsea at a time when the town, like all of us these days, could do with it. Large vessels involved in the provision of the wind farm lie in Brightlingsea Creek until needed. Crews working on the project have their base in the town. They board in bed-and-breakfast accommodation and spend money in pubs, shops and restaurants.

The contractors have also been given permission to demolish a boatyard and to build a three-storey office block and warehouse in Tower Street. This will be used for the service and maintenance of the wind farm when its construction has been completed. Thus it seems that the wind-farm will be a continuing bonus for the Cinque Port Town.


Eight Hundred Years of History

Cambridge University’s celebration of the 800th anniversary of its foundation reminds me of the pride that Heather and I felt were when our elder son Pete was one of four Clacton County High School Boys to be accepted as undergraduates by the University in 1971. We both came of working class parents and considered ourselves to have been privileged in having stayed on at school till we were sixteen to take the School Leaving Exam and matric, instead of leaving school to start work at fourteen as most of our contemporaries had.

No member of either of our immediate families had ever dreamed of going to any kind of University. For our son to go to one of England’s and Europe's most historic and prestigious ones had been beyond our wildest hopes. Our pride on the day that we drove him to Cambridge and settled him into his in-college room was surpassed only by that on graduation day.

Those of course were ‘the bad old days’ when tuition was free and a living allowance, to which parents had to make a ‘parental contribution’ depending upon their means, was paid by the county council. Graduates therefore left their universities without the huge burden of debt that they carry today.


Photos: Left - Graduation Day. Right - Heather and I on the Cam during the course of a visit to Pete. This, you'll realize was in my beardless days. I wasn't too bad a hand with a punt pole! This picture reminds me that Heather and I weren't always old fogies!










Welcome Barack Obama!

I wish the new President of the USA all the luck in the world in his Presidency, and I think that he'll need it if he is to clear up the mess left by his predecessor!

Mr George W. Bush presided over, and was largely responsible for the involvement of the USA and its ever-compliant junior partner Britain, in two unwinnable wars. These have won countless new recruits for the terrorism that they are supposed to be combating. He established the concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba where we now know that torture has been used in questioning prisoners. He has blindly supported Israeli foreign policy, even in opposition to all his other allies. I do not believe it is just a coincidence that the Israeli campaign in Gaza ended, and the Israeli troop withdrawal began, just hours before the inauguration of a President who couldn't be depended upon to defend without question every Israeli action.

On the world stage Mr Bush effectively blighted every international attempt to slow down the pace of climatic change. I have no doubt whatsoever that this will be seen by future historians as overwhelmingly the most serious problem that faced mankind in the 21st century. By extending the boundaries of NATO and ringing Russia with missile bases (purely defensive, of course!) he has made an enemy where he might have found a friend.

At home his blind support for an unfettered free market encouraged the irresponsible lending that precipitated the financial crisis first in the USA and then throughout the world. How ironic that a committed anti-Marxist's policies should threaten to demonstrate the truth of Karl Marx's assertion that 'Capitalism carries within itself the seeds of its own destruction'.

In his Presidency Mr Barack Obama carries the hopes of millions for a better and safer world, perhaps even the one envisaged by Alfred Lord Tennyson in the nineteenth century:

Where the war-drum beats no more and the battle flags are furled, In the Parliament of man, the federation of the World.

Mr Obama has one big advantage as he begins his all-but-impossible task. He isn't George W. Bush