by Guardian

Picture
Stephen Twigg, MP on Westminster Bridge. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian
The Labour party has come up with a plan to introduce debating societies to schools. Shadow education minister Stephen Twigg floated the idea, along with more PE and the introduction of cadet forces. The party feels that the state sector should copy private school tactics to ensure pupils gain a range of life skills. The Communication Trust argues that too many children are arriving at school unable to express themselves and leaving in a barely improved state, which urgently needs addressing. Still, debating societies? Really? Haven't we done enough to underprivileged youth already?

I'm joking. Well, to a degree. The most high-profile debaters are politicians, prancing about, enunciating their stilted scripted "banter" ("My dear fellow"), in a way that suggests their heyday was back in the fifth-form debating society, thrilling the throng with their zingers and put-downs.


Indeed, it's often all too easy to spot former school debating society leading lights in politics and I don't mean that in a complimentary way. The sad truth is that we know, maybe even they know, that all the posturing and expostulating, so highly prized among the green leather benches, would get them glassed within 10 minutes if they tried it on in the average British pub. And these skills are something the yoof of today need? Well, yes, actually, they are sorely needed, certainly in terms of self-assurance and brio, but I can't see it happening this way.

Those who champion debating societies have hit upon an essential truth. In any walk of life, confidence is key: being able to argue your point, to hold your own, is beyond a mere life skill, it's the indispensable fuel for everything you want to do.

This is what Twigg seems to be suggesting – instilling private school-style confidence in a state school setting. What he's forgetting is that this kind of confidence costs and costs big. And, while I imagine good state teachers would volunteer to run these societies, this still misses the point. Private schools don't just have debating societies; they have the kind of funding, resources, culture and infrastructure that result in debating societies. Try copying all that in an inner city comp.

In this way, it becomes clear: you can't just put debating societies into state schools and declare the problems of social inarticulacy and lack of confidence miraculously solved. This would be like Sellotaping a dog's tail on to a cat and willing it to wag. They are totally different beasts.

Who says that state education's only hope is to copy the private sector anyway? Many state school pupils emerge confident, especially if they've started off bright, are blessed with good teaching and have a clear view of their future. They've also probably encountered their own version of debating. I have dim memories of myself and some friends, hosting a "CND assembly" to rapturous indifference. If you look around, you can still see confidence bursting through, in the most inauspicious of circumstances. Even those moppets on X Factor have to muster the courage to audition and well done them. In a way, it's their stab at public speaking and who are we to mock?

With this in mind, it's difficult to see how Twigg's ideas could work. For pupils with confidence, a debating society would be a great diversion, not to be sniffed at, but certainly no educational panacea. For those who are struggling, the ones being targeted, simply tacking a debating society on to their state school experience would change nothing. For all of them, a good education, in a stable school environment, with committed teachers, means more than any amount of extracurricular waffling. While confidence building is key, debating societies aren't the pat answer. State school pupils deserve more than some downgraded version of what the posh kids get.

James Bond – not such a licence to thrill after allA forthcoming drama will portray Ian Fleming as a misogynist spanker, with a mother fixation, who lied about his espionage war record. Which doubtless explains the engorged machismo of Fleming's creation, James Bond.

What a curse 007 has been on the western male, even otherwise perfectly sentient ones. How disappointed they must be that the world isn't full of poison pens, tuxedos, posing on beaches in budgie-smugglers, and women so one dimensional they wouldn't pass muster as cardboard cutouts in a cinema lobby.

It's long been my opinion that James Bond is nothing but the male Bridget Jones in that only his own gender finds him remotely interesting. And yet people revere Bond and reserve their bile for "chick flicks". Say what you like about the likes of Sex and the City, but at least all the sexually active women don't get killed off. Similarly, Girls is the biggest cultural hit of recent times, and there isn't a tragic over-compensatory speedboat in sight.

Male Bond fans need to get real. Just as it is suggested Fleming faked his war record, Bond is all about faking masculinity. Those girlie martinis were always a giveaway.

Chump Chope takes the biscuitOh dear, will they never learn? Tory backbencher Christopher Chope has referred to Westminster catering staff as "servants". He wasn't "overheard" – there were no bike/side gate shenanigans. He stood up in the Commons and said it.

Chope was complaining about food prices in restaurants at Westminster (a cause we all hold dear to our hearts) and described the service as "fantastic". "There were three servants for each person sitting down." Chope later refused to apologise, saying that it was a general Westminster term and: "Everyone who works for the House is a servant of the House." Hmm. Why does a picture keep springing to mind – of a man in a graveyard furiously digging?

Clearly Chope is scared of this turning into Plebgate: The Sequel, but that's unlikely. We servants are likely to laugh this sort of thing off, not least because we're tuckered out from all the silver polishing, grouse beating and forelock tugging that makes up the average day here in the 19th century.

Chope should feel more anxious about waiting staff. It's well known in catering circles that, if a customer is rude or belittling, some (not all) staff may feel the urge to wreak revenge in various unpleasant, unpalatable ways. I'm not suggesting that staff at Westminster would be well within their rights to tamper with an MP's food… no wait, I was suggesting that.

Ultimately, this could be viewed as another gaffe revealing what truly lurks beneath the "all in this together" pinstripes. Snobbery and over-entitlement are packed in so tightly that it's a surprise they doesn't ooze out their Turnbull & Asser collars and cuffs. Sure, the "servants" are likely to laugh this sort of thing off, but that doesn't mean it hasn't been noted, m'lord.




Leave a Reply.