Bleak House

Reading the news headlines today makes it seem like we are living through very bleak times indeed. Of course reporters have to get a strap line and papers or online subscriptions have to sell and make money but let’s get some balance:

If it’s not Brexit it’s Johnson and the suspension of parliament. If it’s not the Amazon forest burning it’s Australia’s coral reef bleaching and dying. If it’s not delays or cancellations at airports it’s migrants taking dangerous journeys. If it’s not Trump it’s Tusk.

If it’s not clashes in Hong Kong it’s protests against Boris-Bojo-Johnson, our Prime Minister, in London. And women’s programmes, books and discussions have leapt on menopause as the latest ‘last taboo’ to investigate.

Too miserable.

On a more bizarre note I could mention recent newsworthy difficulties with the Royal Family, hurricanes in the USA, a story about a burning man or a girl stating her gangster father made her have a nose job. Or I could go to the other extreme and read about the equally disturbing fact that ‘The Great British Bake Off’ with its nauseating neon icing sugar and hullabaloo makes headline news. And if it’s not Bake Off it’s Strictly. Again, let’s get some balance.

What are the thought police doing to us? Trying to mould us into frightened kittens by creating an armageddon where our only option is to retreat into bake caking or over- sexed dance competitions?

On a positive note, or is it? the government is giving schools and FE a boost. BBC News reports:

‘Next year schools will receive a £2.6bn uplift, rising to £4.8bn the following year - with schools spending £7.1bn more than at present by 2022-23.’

and

‘The chancellor is to announce £400m of additional funding for further education in England, as part of his spending review next week.’

Despite Johnson’s premiership convulsing us with its brazen optimism and stubbornness - rather in the manner of a fellow American leader - yes Johnson was born in New York - Professor Curtice says the Tories have gained an extra few per cent in the share of the national vote since Johnson became PM. I can only think that we’re heading for an election and Johnson and the Tories want to remove their iron man exteriors and promote themselves as fluffy, caring ‘end of austerity’ governors of this country. And thereby get elected.

Since 2010 few teachers or teaching assistants have had a meaningful pay rise, the supertax threshold was lowered so deputy heads and other senior staff would see less money in their bank account than expected despite the huge extra responsibilities such roles demand of them. There has been less money for real items such as classroom maintenance, books and pens. And the most vulnerable children have had a squeezed social services trying to meet their needs with a skeleton staff. Meanwhile funds have supported the grades A-C GCSE classes (or grade 7 in this year’s edu-speak) causing special needs children to receive proportionately less.

So hip, hip, hooray for a Tory government who is kind enough to yield £2.6 bn to schools in the next year. 

But - and forgive me for having flights of fancy - what if the Tories aren’t re-elected? Schools would surely not be left with continuing financial problems under a Labour-LibDem alliance? Nothing like pushing a socialist manifesto to outwit Labour. Get in first. Very clever Mr Cummings.

Johnson pledged fantastic sums to the NHS if we left the EU. That was found to be another over-hyped strap line. As I type I don’t know who or what to believe. Certainly those in the headlines are good at courting publicity. But are they - and the reporters who write about them - the people we should be listening to? Since I don’t trust today’s headlines for their bleakness, life isn’t THAT black, I’ll ignore miserable, edgy breaking news and quote WB Yeats:

‘The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.’

WB Yeats (The Second Coming, 1919)

Oh for a quiet discussion with informed, thinking men and women instead of listening to ranting and hectoring from power-hungry exhibitionists.