Ertblog

"Grammar school pupils are more likely to do well" - Daily Mail

A statement of the blindingly obvious.

A grammar school takes the top performing pupils from its catchment area. It would be odd if they weren't more likely to do well overall, regardless of the fact that not everyone who shines in the 11 plus will outperform at GCSE or A level.

I was lucky. I went to one of Wales's top comprehensive schools, Cardiff High. It was once a famous grammar school but has been just as successful as a comprehensive. But its popularity - house prices in Cyncoed and Lakeside reflect the scramble to buy homes in its catchment area - shows that heated debates about grammar v comprehensive are often meaningless. Far more important is how a school, regardless of its status, brings out a pupil's potential.   

Speeding's fine - if you're a police officer

The police are free to do what the hell they like. That's the only possible conclusion from today's court decision to let PC Mark Milton walk free for driving at a staggering 159mph on a public road.

Milton claimed he was familiarising himself with the car. Does anyone think a civilian would have got away with that argument?

Amazingly, Milton is planning to appeal against his guilty verdict. The maximum speed limit in Britain is 70mph. Anyone who thinks he should not be found guilty for doing 90mph over the speed limit has no place in the police service.

Books take flight

Anyone flying from Britain to America can forget any idea of settling down to read a good book.

The security measures introduced last Thursday prevent anyone taking a book or newspaper on board.

While we all support the authorities in their efforts to protect us from the evils of Islamic terrorism, this is madness. And only Britain seems to take the notion of 'an explosive novel' literally. People arriving here from the States report being able to take their favourite novel on board.

Are the media acting beyond the law?

The News of the World has suspended royal editor Clive Goodman after he was charged with nine counts of mobile phone hacking.

Nothing has been proved - these are just allegations until any court case - but comments about the case suggest Britain's media think themselves beyond the law. Roy Greenslade suggested in his Guardian blog that:

"Unless a journalist already has pretty good prior evidence that a person is guilty of some malfeasance, then the bugging or intercepting of phone calls is unwarranted (and, of course, prohibited by the editors' code of practice)."

No, Roy. The media never have the right to bug people's phones, whatever the cause. There is a place for investigative journalism but it has to be within the law. The media are far too inclined to believe they should have unlimited power. A 1980s television comedy, Hot Metal, brilliantly captured this notion. It featured a tabloid hack who persuaded reluctant eye-witnesses to cooperate by warning them they would otherwise be charged with 'obstructing Her Majesty's press in the course of its duties'.

Enron? I'm Bushed

Anyone observing America from the outside will be as confused as ever this week.

Three Britons are extradited to America to answer charges about the collapse of the US energy firm Enron.

Yet George Bush senior, former president and father of current president George W Bush, is chief mourner at the funeral of Kenneth Lay, the chief crook in the Enron saga. The priest at the service compared Lay to Martin Luther and Jesus Christ.

Can anyone wonder why Europeans can't understand America?

British v American justice: cool comment

The weekend's press carries some contrasting comments about the NatWest 3. Worth reading.

Simon Jenkins, Sunday Times
Poor Relations, Sunday Times Business
Justice isn't always equal, The Guardian

NatWest 3: don't forget Nigel Potter

The NatWest 3 were extradited to the United States today, under the glare of the world's media. Giles Darby, David Bermingham and Gary Mulgrew have been accused of fraud connected with the collapse of the American energy giant Enron.

The case has been hugely controversial, highlighting the one-sided extradition treaty between Britain and the US. The men's PR advisers have skilfully harnessed sympathy for their plight through the media. Their PR success could not prevent their extradition. But it has overshadowed the plight of another British businessman, Nigel Potter, who is already incarcerated in an American prison.

Potter is the former chief executive of Wembley plc, the former owner of England's old national stadium.  He was bizarrely and wrongly accused of trying to bribe the former speaker of the state assembly of Rhode Island. He voluntarily went to America to face the music - and was convicted in highly dubious circumstance. His co-defendant was sent to an open prison - but Potter languishes in a secure prison because he is an 'illegal alien'. For the first 10 days, he was placed in solitary confinement, and for 14 days was unable to contact anyone - friends, family or lawyers.

Potter's wife wrote movingly about her husband's plight in the Daily Telegraph earlier this year. His friends have created a website highlighting his case.

July 7, a year on

Britain today remembered the victims of the July 7 bombings, one year on. The two minute silence was observed with dignity and sadness.

Here are a few of the photos I took on my mobile phone on that terrible day:

Queuing for the river boat from Canary Wharf to central London

Boarding the boat.

 

St Paul's and Millennium Bridge.

 

 

And here is my earlier post about 7 July.

Should life mean life?

Justice and the media are uncomfortable bedfellows.

Justice requires dispassion, impartiality and reflection. By contrast, the media craves controversy. It demands simplicity - and seeks to shape popular opinion. The tabloids especially will risk civil unrest in the chase for sales. (Witness the News of the World's campaign against paedophiles in 2000 which led to vigilante action.)

So no-one could be surprised by the latest furore in the media over Craig Sweeney's sentence for assaulting a three year old girl. In his Guardian column this week, Marcel Berlins said it was nonsense to suggest that our judges are too lenient. He pointed out that many people misunderstand the way the system works. References to five and eight years are the minimum terms the prisoners will have to serve before even being allowed to ask the parole board to be released. In no way are the judges suggesting that they should be set free after that time.

Berlins makes a good point. And he's not the only one. The Times today showed how sentencing in Britain is getting tougher. 

But the system seems designed to confuse. You don't have to be a signed up member of the "hang 'em and flog 'em" brigade to think the criminal justice system is its own worst enemy. It mocks the common sense and the English language. Why should anyone who has been found guilty of a despicable crime - such as murder, rape or child abuse - have any right to expect any chance of release after five years? Let's make sentencing far more transparent and understandable. With life expectancy around 80, it's perverse to allow anyone sentenced to 'life' imprisonment to walk the streets after five years.

Read Marcel Berlins' column at http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1797003,00.html

Deadly dogfight

Tragedy merged with farce today as Greek and Turkish fighters collided over the Aegean.

We're told that the two airforces regularly indulge in mock dogfights in disputed airspace.

It's madness. Greece and Turkey are both members of NATO. Turkey has applied to join the EU. Yet they're behaving like spoilt children. And today a pilot died as a result.