Opinion

Here I comment on a wide range of issues from education to politics, the arts and more. I welcome lively and opinionated debate, so please leave your comments.

  • The terrible names parents give their children

    What kind of parent calls their child ‘Storm’, ‘Beetroot’, or ‘Brussell Sprout’? Only the kind that hasn’t thought about the consequences for that child. I appeared on Woman’s Hour, with Dea Birkett, who had called her children ‘Storm’ and ‘Savannah’. I complained that called your child ‘Storm’ forces a personality, an attitude, a metaphor upon […]

  • Epic narratives in an alternative universe at the White Cube

  • London’s Dead

    Visited the exhibition of skeletons of London’s dead at the Wellcome Institute this morning and was blown away with thoughts of mortality, love, death, disease and ghostliness of the past living in the present. Laid out in cold clarity, underneath clear perspex cabinets, the jaws and eye sockets of London’s dead gaped and stared at […]

  • Would you intervene if you saw someone being beaten up?

    Andrew Jones was smashed in the head on a night out in Liverpool recently and died as a result. Plenty of people saw him being beaten up, but did nothing. His killers were caught but given only cursory justice. His father is now leading a campaign to punish them properly and to stop the sort […]

  • Appearance on Radio 5 Live Steve Nolan Show

    Appeared as a guest speaker on the Steve Nolan show, talking about the recent case where a seven-year-old child was put into a naughty room with his parents’ permission at his primary school. When the parents learnt what had happened, they went ballistic, complaining that the school had infringed upon their child’s rights and psychologically […]

  • Appearances on BBC News and Daily Politics

    Appeared on BBC News talking about Alan Steer’s new recommendations that teachers should have the right to search pupils for alcohol and drugs, as well as knives. I pointed out that it was sad that there had to be a law to enable teachers to do this: it was yet another indication that we’ve lost […]

  • Two Hour Guest Appearance On BBC World Service

    I was a guest on a two show that the BBC World Service Host in the evening to Africa and and the rest of the world in mid June. It was a discussion held in a Glasgow town hall where callers from all around the world and the eclectic guests in Glasgow gave their views […]

  • Metal detectors at Paddington Academy

    Very interesting to see that Paddington Academy is one of the few schools to bite the bullet — or pull the knife if you like — and introduce metal detectors to stop knife crimes in the school. Even more interesting to note, that it was the pupils who wanted it. As I argued previously on […]

  • The Road Home wins — and now perhaps Tremain will get the recognition she deserves

    Rose Tremain has deservedly won the Orange Prize for her brilliant, complex and beautifully written novel, The Road Home. Now perhaps, she will be viewed as the writer she is: I think she IS our major British novelist, putting the likes of others from her generation in the shade — Amis, McEwan, Barnes. Will she […]

  • Appearance on BBC Breakfast

    Appeared this Tuesday on BBC Breakfast giving my views about homework. A recent survey shows that not many parents understand their children’s homework and don’t have much of a clue about how to help. I spoke about the two types of parent: the nagger, who is always hovering over their child, checking to see if […]

  • Casual violence that children learn to live with

    A disturbing analysis of the current state of gangs in Britain: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article3950162.ece‘

  • Girl gangs

    A fascinating piece on the evolution of girl gangs which ties in with some of the stuff I point out in Yob Nationhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/05/14/do1403.xml‘

  • Appearing on the Wright Stuff

  • BBC Interviews

    Spoke at length on two radio interviews today: BBC Radio Ulster and BBC Radio Scotland. The Ulster interview asked for my comments on the Tories’ new proposals to stop the parents of excluded children appealing against a headteacher’s decision to exclude them. I said it was all a bit of a sound bite and that […]

  • Tender is the night

    Finished reading Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘Tender is the Night’ and was struck by the author’s deep psychological insight, his ability to scrutinise the tiniest reactions of people when they are confronted or challenged, his uncanny, enlightened cynicism that sees multiple causes behind every gesture, every flick of the eye, every glance. The scene where Dick Diver […]

  • Violence in the classroom

    A depressing survey that shows violence in the classroom is on the increase: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article3564297.ece http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/onethird-of-teachers-threatened-796778.html‘

  • Interesting article on the brain controlling accent

    Great article for English Language A Level students on how the brain controls accents here.’

  • BBC Radio 5 Live Debate On Universities

    Appeared on Richard Bacon’s show, arguing that too many students were going to university, studying non-courses’. Too many courses are not serious: Outdoor Adventure With Philosophy, Ghost-Hunting, Surfing Studies. The guest arguing the other point of view, said that students should be able to study whatever they want. I argued there was limited money in […]

  • Rose-tinted government recruitment campaign on BBC Breakfast

    Appeared yesterday on BBC Breakfast talking about the new government advertising campaign to recruit teachers. I complained on the Beeb’s very red sofa that the government didn’t tell the truth, that it gave false hopes and that it sold the lie that teachers are paid like people in the corporate world. The campaign highlights all […]

  • Good analysis of the crime statistics

    The Sunday Times ran a good analysis of the crime stats in this interesting comment piece. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/minette_marrin/article3382270.ece?openComment=true‘