For light blogging. New work, steep learning curve, long hours, longish travel.
Inshallah at some stage the learning cliff-face will be conquered and I'll emerge either into a fertile plain of relative competence, or a bleak, windswept plateau of not quite up to it. I reckon either way it'll be another three or four weeks.
One or two things that caught my eye.
Blackburn -
twinned with Abbottabad. I thought the point of these school twinning arrangements was for the children to learn about other, unfamiliar cultures - in which case why choose
Abbottabad, whose culture will be familiar to the pupils of Daisyfield School, most of whom are of
Pakistani heritage? If they wanted to expose the children to an unfamiliar culture, why not a school in, say, Petersfield or Winchester?
The Conservative pledge to cut immigration looks like another one of David Cameron's
cast-iron guarantees. "Net migration in to the UK soared by almost half last year and is now close to the record levels of 2005. It is the fifth quarter in a row that net immigration has risen signalling a worrying upward trend. And two of the main drivers were a slump in emigration and a sharp rise in Eastern Europeans coming to the UK for work – two areas that will not be affected by the Government’s annual cap or other immigration measures. "
Three points here. One is that the counting immigration only in net terms is a neat way of ignoring the demographic transformation illustrated in the Blackburn link above. If all the native English were to emigrate and be replaced by incomers, net immigration would be zero and the BBC would doubtless headline that immigration WAS zero. To a large extent headline immigration figures have been reduced by the massive
UK brain drain, as young natives with degrees leave to be replaced by young Afghans and Somalis.
Two is that the left and
IPPR argument - "
they're only here for the booming economy and they'll go home when there's a downturn" doesn't seem to have reflected reality. I'm shocked.
Three is that Cameron is so serious about cutting immigration that 5,000 jobs are going at the UK border agency. While that agency is
useless, corrupt and incompetent, I'm not sure increasing its workload and reducing its staffing levels is going to improve it.
The
TB jab returns? Only a few short years after declaring victory over tuberculosis, we're importing it at such a rate we've got to start all over again.
A Department of Health spokesman said: "We recognise that tuberculosis is a serious issue in London, particularly in more deprived boroughs and among the migrant community."
"Crucially, both the public and health care professionals need to be aware that TB is back, and growing fast."
26.5% of primary school pupils are now ethnic minority, up from 23% in 2008. The destruction of what was, with all its faults, one of the best places in the world to live continues.
Still, say not the struggle naught availeth, what ?