I wonder whose bright idea it was to put David Willetts on Newsnight and Channel 4 News last night. Jon Snow cut him up and then regurgitated him for him to be stuffed by Paxo. If anything underlined the need for Andy Coulson to start before 9 July, that did. All it achieved was to give more ammunition for today's papers and extend the story by yet another day.
Mind you, that had already been achieved by The Bucks Examiner reporting a statement signed by all Buckinghamshire MPs, including John Bercow, welcoming the confirmation by Shadow Education Secretary David Willetts that a Conservative government would allow Buckinghamshire County Council to expand both grammar and upper school provision in the county to meet the needs of population growth. Read it HERE.
This would be the same John Bercow who appeared on GMTV last Sunday saying that it will be "electoral suicide" for the Tories to go on about grammar schools and that David Cameron's policy of "no more grammars" was absolutely right.
No, my mistake. Must be a different John Bercow! You couldn't make this up.
36 comments:
I think it was to Willetts' credit he didn't shy away from putting the record straight. This was a silly attempt (fuelled by Labour) to make a mountain out of a molehill and get a "U-turn" story where there wasn't one. The position in places where grammars exist already had been made clear publicly and privately many times before, as the Bucks MPs confirm.
It's day 17 actually.
You know, Iain, if you affected a Geordie accent and secured sponsorship from Virgin Media or Carphone Warehouse, we could make this almost as popular as Big Brother...
is john snow the same person as jon snow?
look, all that really matters is - will beckham perform tonight? Give that man a knighthood!!!
this whole grammer school thing is SO over ...
grammar too :)
I have no sympathy for the Tories on this one. Having shot themselves in the foot they promptly called for further ammunition.
I be buggered, the Bucks liar goes national.
All this is a bit odd. The Buckinghamshire population is only growing because of the presence of Milton Keynes in the county.
But...
Milton Keynes has and always had a Comprehensive system, even when Buckinghamshire county council ran the schools in the new town.
Of course, Milton Keynes gained "independence" from Bucks CC and is now a unitary council.
The dead hand of Green Belt means that the population of the rest of Bucks is growing no faster than the rest of the country.
If you're going to steal catchphrases, Iain, couldn't you take one not synonymous with a racist, homophobic misanthrope?
What I want to lnow is why David Willett's didn't say this on Radio 5 Live some days ago when interviewed in tandem with the Head Of Buckinghamshire LEA.
Instead of referring back to the previous commitment a year ago, Willett's ducked the question saying he did not know about individual cases.
Now apparently he did know and was covering it up. I wonder why?
You could see the absolute relish in Paxo's eyes when he laid into Willetts. When this sort of thing happens to New Labour he affects a pained sort of bewilderment
It brings back memories of that PR disaster perpetrated by Theresa May when she invented the term "nasty party". Talk about giving a stick to your enemy to beat you with. The left still use it with relish. Must do better certainly.
John Bercow? I met him a few years ago, and still can't get over how utterly awful he was. Keep him out of the shadow cabinet, please!
Anon 8:10
Don't think you need to worry about Bercow - he was in twice before and quite - the man is just not a team player.
I meant QUIT!
This is just Day 17; it's going to run and run until the next election, by which time let's hope there is a Conservative education policy in place which fully recognises the importance of academically selective education and supports parents and local authorities who wish to return to, or extend, such a system. Whether the Camerloons will still be around by that time is frankly irrelevant.
And Andrew Lansley didn't seem to convince the audience on tonight's Any Questions either...
Isn't John Bercow a New Labour MP?
Why do we need grammar schools/ Well there must be SOMEWHERE in the country that we could educate Cameron and his shadow cabinet!
"Give that man a knighthood!!!"
or as Callmedave would have it..."a night hood"
The BBC's presenters are by no stretch of anyones imagination apolitical.... on the 3 Flagship prog's i watched there was concerted effort to stuff the Tories. Others on/in the studio were Liberals /Lefties revelling in the diatribe!...A sort of Gang grope.
Why do you think it is Day 14 and Tim Montgomerie think it is Day 17......don't you guys get together and synchronise calendars.....to make sure you are both using Gregorian rather than Julian ?
Shadow education minister John Bercow said: "This campaign will see the Conservative Party fighting for the education we value.
"We want to preserve grammar schools, which are renowned for academic results, sporting prowess and cultural achievements.
"The process of abolition is a dishonest one, from loaded ballots to the hypocrisy of ministers. Around a dozen current and former Labour ministers have benefited from a grammar school education.
"The government has already emasculated grant-maintained schools. Now grammar schools are the one category of school which ministers have spitefully targeted for abolition."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/597159.stm
Monday, 10 January, 2000
So Bercow spins like a top. I wonder if Cameron just puts a coin in the slot to get Bercow to perform.
Anyway David Starkey likes Grammar Schools just as Bercow once said he did too
I ask Starkey what he thinks of the modern education system. This is the interrogative equivalent of driving a car and then discovering that the brakes do not work. He is unstoppable. Starkey is utterly contemptuous of standards in schools and universities alike. Referring proudly to his grammar-school heritage, he insists that those schools "drove you". When he was at Cambridge, he and other state-school products easily outshone their counterparts from Eton, Winchester or Westminster. Students from lesser public schools were "absolutely thick" and "had been shoddily taught". The destruction of grammar schools is "the most shocking feature of late- 20th-century Britain, and directly responsible for the decline in social mobility".
http://news.independent.co.uk/people/profiles/article358896.ece
Willets is an excellent MP but unfortunatly not a good shadow minister. I think we can forgive him for that. But what is totally unforgivable is the actions of the Totnes MP. His actions will stick in the public's mind far longer than a little domestic spat in the Conservative party.
His actions will stick in the public's mind far longer than a little domestic spat in the Conservative party.
I think you are very parochial - another arrogant Tory - so what ?
But Willetts is toast...he had that little problem as a Whip trying to mess with The Standards Committee over Neil Hamilton; it now appears he is very accident-prone - a Veritable Letwin.
When Cameron sacrifices Willetts to save himself it may come too late to stop the activist base splintering into Independent Conservatives....
Cameron has just sawn off three legs of his stool
Bercow was a Portillo supporter. Need we say more? He cannot help joining a bandwagon when he sees one. He obviously enjoys the ride, and cares little for the destination. Swinging between different sides of an argument day by day is par for the Bercow course. Loyalty to leader matters nothing. He used to butcher IDS'reputation on TV.
Nothing would surprise me. Just provide him with a bandwagon, and he'll be fine. Maybe Andy Coulson can find him one.
I think that the real issue this spat over Grammar schools has shown is that all these 'Policy Reviews' are just a time-wasting sham. That is the thing that has got many Conservatives justifiably annoyed. Cameron's Etonian background and dismissive style has merely put petrol on the flames.
Dave should stay in Crete-permanently!
And don't shoot Willetts-go for the organ grinder.
In order to be the heirs to Blairs one must be flexible - say one thing, mean another - condemn Tuesdays's policy on Thursday. I you can confuse the voters sufficiently they may let you in.
On a slightly different note - if Blair is in Africa, Prescott in the West Indies and Brown incommunicado, who is running the bloody country right now?
Victor, NW Kent
Bercow - from the slimy toad wing of the party that puts off so many voters of a sensitive nature - Duncan's another.
s that all these 'Policy Reviews' are just a time-wasting sham.
I thought they were in reality search parties to go out and see what happened to Blair's working groups under people like Martin Taylor and other assorted redundant executives......never did find out what happened to all those ad hoc groups Blair set up in 1997......thought there might be some bleached bones somewhere
News of the Screws-could noone else be drafted-even at nearly £500k a year?
Cameron in Crete: "I am very relaxed and in robust mood. I regard much of this as froth and nonsense whipped up by the media. "
Or to put it another way:
"Crisis? What crisis?"
Unless I say there's a crisis there isn't one.Oiks should get back in line.
froth and nonsense snorted Cameron in crete
Dave looks on course to be an even worse Tory leader than Iain Duncan Smith, and that's saying something. Tory MPs were daft to allow themselves to be manipulated into voting for Dave just because of some psychobabble guru on Newsnight (doubtless sponsored by the Sith Institute) who proclaimed that Dave was definitely the one the public would be drawn to vote for. Tory MPs by now really should be alive to the tricksters, but I fear they allowed themselves to be bounced into electing the candidate New Labour wanted them to elect.
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