THE RT. HON. DENIS MACSHANE, A GARAGE, AND £125,000

Denis MacShane looks as if he may be joining the hat woman Moran in the dock very shortly.

The Commons authorities have reported Den boy to the police after studying his claims for office space in his constituency which turned out to be his garage. At £20,000 a year (totalling some £125,000), paid to himself, it turned out to be a rather expensive garage...well, expensive for us, not him.

He also appears to have favoured his family when it came to getting work done. He submitted more than a dozen invoices for “research and translation” from an organization called the European Policy Institute, which just happens to be run by his brother.

As Europe minister, you would have thought that he would have been able to get any research or translating done for him by people in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office or by the government’s own EU offices in London.

He also claimed for 8 laptops in 3 years... I’m pretty sure that even working as hard as I’m sure Mr MacShane did, no one could wear out that many computers in such a short time. But of course he could have been taking after his boss, Mr Brown, but throwing laptops instead of Nokias!

MacShane is thought to be the first MP referred to the police by parliament. Let’s hope he’s not the last.

Just one last thought. When I was researching some pictures for this post I noticed that MacShane is in fact the Rt. Hon. Denis MacShane. Is it not time, given the dishonour that these people have brought upon themselves, upon the London parliament and upon the UK, that these ridiculous honorifics be ditched? They are not honourable nor are they right honourable. They shouldn’t be so addressed. If there is no mechanism for removing them from the Privy Council, then there should be.

Update

Mr MacShane is no longer a Labour MP having had the whip removed. (Hat tip to Guido)

Pics: Mr MacShane and his garage (a coat of pain wouldn't have gone amiss at £250K, don't you think?)

SHOULD SCOTTISH KIDS BE FORCED TO WEAR UNIFORM?

Yesterday I watched some girls come out of school looking like the fantasy of your average middle aged man. The word slappers sprung to mind.

Skirts just below the top of their legs, fish net tights, half open blouses, ties half undone, lipstick, makeup, chewing gum, open mouths. (OK, it may seem that this was an in-depth study, but I was walking up the road when they were coming out of school and walking down the road. There were hundreds of them and I was making a study with this post in mind.) I WAS Niko!!!

The boys were unremarkable. Yes, they tend to wear trainers with their black trousers (maybe because their parents can’t afford shoes and trainers at the same time), but apart from untidy ties they looked fine. Scruffy of course, but boys always look scruffy by 4 pm. Sad lad indeed that went home smart!

I’ve long wondered why we put kids in uniform. Does it improve academic achievement? Is it affordable? Is it good for discipline? Is it widespread? What about design? Would a more modern/casual approach in conjunction with pupils be better?

Across the world there are varying attitudes to uniform. The more authoritarian regimes of course demand uniforms and strict ones too: Burma, North Korea and China. Australia and NZ have informal uniforms : polo shirts, trousers or skirts. Some countries, like Brazil favour jeans and a school polo shirt. And of course some have no uniforms, America, Canada, near neighbours in Europe, Russia and the Scandinavian countries.

Most seem to achieve a relatively high standard of education. However it is hard to say if this is affected by uniform or not. For example regardless of apparel in North Korea you would be expected to be quiet and studious at school. The alternative might be your parents being sent to a correction camp!!

Subrosa’s interesting article on the subject includes her answer to me about a poor parent who was driven into debt trying to keep her daughter in the fashion items that other girls wore. But, in the middle 80s the cost of a Harris Academy blazer was £50! Lord knows what they cost now. And besides uniform there’s the latest phones, ipods, laptops and dongles. A pencil case and a protractor no longer meet the needs! And they need the fashion statement clothes anyway for after school. Why buy the blazer on top?

I’ve done a little bit of teaching in my time: in schools, college, university, and training companies. In none of the places where I taught was there any kind of uniform.... and some of my students were the toughest guys in town. Only once have I ever had a problem with discipline.

There were teachers in my school, where strict uniform was worn, who spent the whole lesson in chaos. Rubbish teachers! If you want to improve discipline, make your lessons more interesting. With a bit of effort you can.

Of course you can say that they have a strict old fashioned uniform policy at Eton, or Benenden and their discipline is nearly perfect and almost everyone goes up to Oxbridge, but then that may be attributable to many other factors, don’t you think?

I see no point in making children’s lives any more difficult than they are. Teenage years in particular are fraught. Uniforms which are uncomfortable and unfashionable, as well as an additional expense to people with not enough money seem to me as likely to be counterproductive as advantageous to achieving a good education.

I wonder what you guys think... and why?